The Day After Turkey Day Gets Gross: Wyoming Plumbers Gear Up for “Brown Friday”

The original story by Mark Heinz for Cowboy State Daily.

If Thanksgiving is all about food, family, and football, the day after is all about… consequences. At least for Wyoming plumbers. “Brown Friday” isn’t a joke — it’s the busiest, greasiest, most gut-churning day of the year for the folks who rescue our drains from holiday disaster.

The big villain? Grease. Buckets of it. All that buttery, oily, gooey goodness from a Thanksgiving feast might slide down the sink looking innocent enough, but once it hits the pipes, it cools into something closer to concrete.

“Everybody thinks everything can go down the drain,” said independent Gillette plumber Shawn Haight.

Spoiler: it cannot.

He’s even seen Thanksgiving leftovers end up in laundry drain lines, which created a steamy, gag-inducing backwash of lint and turkey grease.

“Let’s just say lint and grease don’t mix very well,” he warned.

Cory Kopp, a master plumber and owner of Plumbing Masters in Casper, says people routinely expect miracles from their garbage disposals.

“It’s not a trash-processing thing,” he said. “It’s meant for tiny scraps—not the remains of an entire feast.”

While most Americans are stampeding for half-off TVs, plumbers across the country are bracing for the true holiday rush: clogged sinks, jammed garbage disposals, and the occasional toilet uprising.

Luckily, Wyoming escapes the worst of the toilet catastrophes, according to Haight, Kopp, and Erin Lamb of the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities. The state mostly deals with sink drama, not sewer avalanches.

But even if Cheyenne hasn’t been hit with big-city “fatberg” nightmares, Lamb says post-feast grease still causes nasty problems in neighborhood sewer lines. The good news? The city’s main lines have never been overwhelmed.

“Our operations and maintenance keep them clear,” she said — something for residents to be thankful for.

“If you see thousands of kitchens running sinks and garbage disposals with greasy, buttery, oily items, it’s going to start clogging lines up,” Lamb said.

Anything that cools and hardens — bacon grease, turkey drippings, mystery casserole goo — will cling to pipe walls and start collecting whatever comes next.

“It acts just like glue,” said Kopp.

Even hot water won’t save you. It just delays the clog by a few feet.

Haight says problems explode when people start treating their disposals like industrial shredders.

Turkey bones? Vegetable peels? Random holiday debris? Nope, nope, and absolutely not. If it’s chunky or stringy, it’s probably going to plug the works.

“Garbage disposals are meant for just that last little bit of stuff that’s on your plate,” Kopp said.

The rest belongs in the trash.

Cheyenne officials are pushing out reminders about F.O.G. — fats, oils, and grease — before they become a post-holiday menace.

Pour grease into a jar, let it solidify, and toss it. Don’t pour it down the sink. Don’t put it in the disposal. Don’t tempt fate.

As for the plumbers? Kopp is fully braced for Brown Friday .Haight is simply hoping the phone remains silent.

“I can always hope I don’t get any calls,” he said—with the weary optimism of a man who knows better.