With a little bit of copying and pasting you could make some decent blog posts out of some of your comments. lol
I was surprised about the steaming from the acid. I'm guessing that steam "isn't too safe". lol

I really like the Mainline drain cleaner and have seen good reviews. Maybe the lye you bought was actually pure lye which sounds very very dangerous. Even the mainline drain cleaner is pretty dangerous. I use gloves when I use it.