World's best - and cheapest - drain opener: Zip-It

I learned of this wonderful device via Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools.

It's elegantly simple: a slender 20"-long piece of thin white plastic with sharp little barbs running up the sides.

After your sink or shower or tub starts draining slowly or not at all, and after [before, in my case, now] multiple applications of industrial-strength Liquid Plumber or Drano, you take this nifty little thing and simply push it down the drain to the hilt.

The inventor made the end you hold large enough not to slip down the drain.

Then you slowly pull the Zip-It out, trying not to barf when you see the horrible stuff that's draped all over the barbs.

"Eeewww," is what I said the first time I used it (quite successfully, I might add) to clear a recalcitrant drain.

If you've got a really weak stomach, you might want to ask a friend to do this for you.

In fact, it might be an excellent way to find out who your real friends are.

$2.69 here.

The instructions on the back of the packaging say "Throw away after each use," but I can't see why you'd necessarily have to do that: the thing looks tough enough to last forever.

I suppose they want to be off the hook - so to speak - if you cut yourself on one of the sharp barbs while cleaning it, and the wound subsequently gets infected, gangrenous, and you lose the extremity.

They can say, "Hey, we warned you not to do that."

And they can, for all the good it'll do 'em: the instructions do say, "DO NOT attempt to clean - sharp edges could cause injury."

Zip-It's also "Nontoxic and environmentally safe."

Made in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Guess for some reason they didn't see the need to farm this one out to the Third World.