Septic Tank
Growing up in the suburbs leaves you unprepared for a lot of things in life. It leaves you sheltered from things that other experience daily. I've never milked a cow. I've never been mugged. It forces you to come up with your own little adventures. For example: One time me and Nick went and explored a manhole near the back of my high school. We went inside and made jokes about finding bodies and rats for about 10 minutes before it got old, and we went home.
Here in Washington I've encountered several things that are different from my life at home. For instance, a septic system. I've never lived in a house with a septic tank. Never seen one, never smelled one. Hell, I'm not even sure how the things work, until now.
"Mom!" Shouted my neice, Emma, "There's water rising in the shower!"
Her father, Warren, rolled his eyes in a kinda "Oh, fuck." kinda way. Oh fuck was right.
You see, Warren had been living in his home for about 15 years at this point, knowing full well that a septic tank was just a dozen yards fromt he back of his house. Did he check it in those fifteen years? Maybe. I don't know. Did he ever get the damned thing pumped?
No.
When does it overflow? The 2 weeks that I'm here. Yippee!
I knew I was fucked when I heard Warren and Lisa discussing this turn of events in the kitchen. You see, Warren has a foot injury that keeps him from putting more that 25% of his wheight on his foot at any given time, his his children are 11 and 8 (boy girl respectively) and my sister Lisa is a women, meaning that all of them are useless when it comes to hard, manual labor. So, you guessed it: The responsibility of digging around in the backyard for the lids of these septic tanks fell to me. Best. Vacation. Ever.
I began digging. Luckily, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months (the normal rainfall for this area in a year is approx. 37 inches), so the ground was soft and easy to break. Unfortunatly, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months, so the water table had risen to about a foot below ground level.
And there I stood. Smelling of shit, covered in god-knows-what, wet from the constant drizzle, digging and digging and digging. And when I thought the digging was finished, it turns out thatI had dug the wrong spot, and had to dig some more.
The best part was when my 8 year old neice came out and promptly attemped to fall into the hole. The worse part was opening up the "solids" part of the septic tank. The smell alone nearly knocked me on my ass. 15 years of poo just kicking me right in the nose, as if to say "What? I'm smelly! What the fuck are you gonna do about it?!" The smell was so bad that the lid slipepd from my grasp, splashing the brown mucky water intot he air, and right into my mouth.
Woo-hoo.
The only good thing to come of this is the fact that my brother-in-law is going to buy me my favorite meal: Hookers and blow.
Here in Washington I've encountered several things that are different from my life at home. For instance, a septic system. I've never lived in a house with a septic tank. Never seen one, never smelled one. Hell, I'm not even sure how the things work, until now.
"Mom!" Shouted my neice, Emma, "There's water rising in the shower!"
Her father, Warren, rolled his eyes in a kinda "Oh, fuck." kinda way. Oh fuck was right.
You see, Warren had been living in his home for about 15 years at this point, knowing full well that a septic tank was just a dozen yards fromt he back of his house. Did he check it in those fifteen years? Maybe. I don't know. Did he ever get the damned thing pumped?
No.
When does it overflow? The 2 weeks that I'm here. Yippee!
I knew I was fucked when I heard Warren and Lisa discussing this turn of events in the kitchen. You see, Warren has a foot injury that keeps him from putting more that 25% of his wheight on his foot at any given time, his his children are 11 and 8 (boy girl respectively) and my sister Lisa is a women, meaning that all of them are useless when it comes to hard, manual labor. So, you guessed it: The responsibility of digging around in the backyard for the lids of these septic tanks fell to me. Best. Vacation. Ever.
I began digging. Luckily, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months (the normal rainfall for this area in a year is approx. 37 inches), so the ground was soft and easy to break. Unfortunatly, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months, so the water table had risen to about a foot below ground level.
And there I stood. Smelling of shit, covered in god-knows-what, wet from the constant drizzle, digging and digging and digging. And when I thought the digging was finished, it turns out thatI had dug the wrong spot, and had to dig some more.
The best part was when my 8 year old neice came out and promptly attemped to fall into the hole. The worse part was opening up the "solids" part of the septic tank. The smell alone nearly knocked me on my ass. 15 years of poo just kicking me right in the nose, as if to say "What? I'm smelly! What the fuck are you gonna do about it?!" The smell was so bad that the lid slipepd from my grasp, splashing the brown mucky water intot he air, and right into my mouth.
Woo-hoo.
The only good thing to come of this is the fact that my brother-in-law is going to buy me my favorite meal: Hookers and blow.
posted by Headline Blankets at 3:11 AM
1 Comments:
Really? In the mouth? Didn't you try to tell me this story when I was drunk?
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