When my then-girlfriend and I first started dating, she was fascinated by the field I worked in. She lived in a large, run-down Victorian home with four other college-aged roommates. The home's old plumbing was constantly backing up. On one of our earliest dates, she bragged to me that she had appointed herself to the position of "house plumber." She took it upon herself to clear all the house's clogs, relying upon endless bottles of Draino, a tiny plastic snake that came wit