Pipes and Putty

It seems that the plumbing always breaks at 8:45pm. That means you can't get to the local hardware store because they all close at 9:00pm. Last night the sink was not draining. We tried to plunger the side while holding our tongues. We tried standing on our head plunging. To no avail. The sink will not drain. My husband, suggests we pull the "P" trap off. That scares the "P" of me because I can only imagine how the P gets to the kitchen sink.

My job was clearing out the space under the sink. John gets under the sink for two minutes and the screams start. How is it that you only realize that the pipes are so close to the bottom of the cupboard that once you have water in your bucket you can not get your bucket out of the cupboard? Now we have to transfer water twice to get it out of the bucket. Everything is taken a part and ...... There is not a blockage anywhere. This is kind of scary because if we can't see it now it must be further down the line. We hook up the left side of the sink and wow it works. So we put the right side back together and it leaks. The top nut that holds the pipe to the other pipe is just a slide nut. That may not be the technical term but it has no threads and does not tighten....it just slides up the pipe and should get tight. Guess what it doesn't. How the heck does this work?

I am frustrated beyond belief because John is not going to be home Friday or Saturday and I know it will drive me crazy to not be able to fix the sink or use it. Why do the plumbing problems always happen at the worst time???