I have two men staying at my house right now. When they got home from shopping (for me), they informed me they needed a bucket for the upstairs sink as it wouldn't drain. They wanted to clean the trap. I said sure, but I wanted to take a look first. Immediately, they started emptying the cupboard under the sink. I stopped them before they went too far and asked if they'd tried using the plunger. Uh, apparently not.

After the first plunge where all the clogged water came out the overflow drain shooting all over the mirror. You have to use quite a bit of quick force when plunging for the best effect. This means there was a lot of water shooting out the overflow drain. There might have been some laughter at this point.

Now, I tried a few different things as I realized the cause of the plugged drain was me and my vacuuming on Saturday. I maybe attempted to flush too much water and waste and clogged the drain. But since most of that went down the toilet, the sink blockage might not have been in the trap. I tried plunging the toilet to see if that had any effect, but no dice. Then I plugged the overflow drain with a washcloth, which one of the men was nice enough to hold for me while tried again with the plunging. That seemed to do the trick as I was able to plunge away heartily in the sink. And three or four plunges later - we had drainage.

The man holding the wash cloth made the comment, "Makes me feel kind of useless."