When a bathroom sink starts draining slowly right before the holidays, it’s rarely just about water. It’s the fear of a house full of guests and no professional help in sight. Yet most of these clogs are surprisingly ordinary: hair tangled around a stopper, soap scum hardened inside the drain, or sludge trapped in the P-trap beneath the sink. Step by step, with basic tools and a little patience, you can work your way from the simplest checks—testing other sinks, cleaning the stopper, snaking out hair—to more involved fixes like flushing with boiling water, using a wet/dry vacuum, plunging correctly, and finally opening the P-trap. Along the way, you learn what not to pour down your drain, and how a simple strainer and weekly rinse can prevent the problem from returning. And if nothing works, you at least know the truth: you did everything you safely could—now it’s the plumber’s turn.