Bathtub - Stuck [2021]

Nothing.

Over the next week, Lena tried everything. A sledgehammer only chipped the enamel. A heat gun turned the epoxy into a kind of superglue-scented napalm. A contractor named Jerry came by, took one look, laughed for thirty seconds straight, and quoted her nine thousand dollars to “cut out the floor, lift the tub with a chain hoist, and rebuild the joists from scratch.” Lena didn’t have nine thousand dollars. She had a bathtub that was now load-bearing. bathtub stuck

So she improvised.

It started as a perfectly reasonable Sunday afternoon project. Lena had decided to replace the old claw-foot tub in her Victorian fixer-upper. The thing was a beast—cast iron, porcelain-coated, probably installed when Grover Cleveland was in office. She’d already sawed through the rusty supply lines and uncoupled the drain. Now came the moment of truth: wiggling the tub free from its century-long slumber. Nothing

She braced her feet against the wall, gripped the tub’s rim, and heaved. A heat gun turned the epoxy into a