This is the true tale of a cascading shit-show.
The weekend before the one just gone by Ii got a call from my friend Dale; I informally caretake for him and his husband Cyril. The problem: water on the floor under their hot water heater. I went and checked it Sunday morning, found that none of the usual suspects (supply valves, element seals, etc) were guilty, the tank itself was leaking. So I checked on the availability of a replacement heater at the local building supply before they closed at 1, found they had one in stock and told him I'd squeezed it in my schedule and do the transplant on Monday.
I don't believe in God, but if there is one (or several), he, she, or It laughed at this plan. Maniacally.
Monday morning, before I was even up the woman who rents the house next door, formerly my wife's mother's house, started calling in a panic. Both toilets were plugged and raw sewage was gooshing up through the shower and sink drains like an aromatic and even lower budget X the Unknown.
So that morning my wife and I located the septic tank, cleared the top of it, pulled the big cement plugs,and peered down into the stinky morass. Tank was sure as shit full,and really jammed up at the intake end. A call was put in to the Pumper People; they would come first thing Tuesday. That afternoon I used a utility pump to pull 50 or so nasty gallons out and fire it into the leach lines, giving me enough space to finally clear all the lines and drains in and under the house, making the system cautiously usable again. Tuesday morning the honey wagon arrived, emptied the tank. Crisis concluded.
All this happened while I was still trying to find time (and ambition) to find and clear the top of our own septic tank, as flushing had become increasingly erratic and disappointing whilst using our own throne; quite often the plunger or a bucket flush was needed. Now I was a day and a half behind on my pile of must-do jobs--though I did get the new water heater in and running Tuesday afternoon. I ran from job to job like a maniac, and finally Thursday morning I got time to shovel off the top of our own tank. Even though it hadn't been pumped in 20 years it didn't look that bad. As tanks of sewage go. Not photogenic, but not an overflowing Lovecraftian/Trumpish horror either. Still, it was open,and overdue, so the Pumpers were called back. They showed Friday morning, pumped. Problem solved, right?
No, not hardly--though I didn't know it yet. There was rain predicted for that afternoon so I reburied most of the tank top, then went on to helping my wife with a bit more setup for our large benefit yard sale scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, proceeds of the sale to help cover the costs of our wildlife rehabilitation practice.
Friday afternoon the skies opened up,and we got over 2 inches of rain in about 2.5 hours. The rain finally quit early evening, but too late for much in the way of setup for a show held under 4 pop-ups, one big canopy, and open yard. And we still had toilet problems. The same problem: liquids flushed nicely,just like after the pump-out. Solids, which manifested late afternoon and evening, not so much. More work was required--later. The next morning it was up at o-dark-thirty to try to get set up for the sale(and feed critters and clean cages); we were only half set up when people started arriving before 10.
We made it through the first day of the sale, tired, overheated zombies. Covering and bringing stuff in under the tents for the night killed the evening.
Once a bunch of chores and errands were dealt with Sunday morning, and we had the sale lurching into its much slower second day, I issued a warning: our unreliable friend Mr Loo was going off line for an hour or two while I tried to get to the bottom of the problem with the fixture that was supposed to deal with the product of our bottoms. The water supply was cut off, bolts were removed, and the porcelain troublemaker was uprooted.
What I was by now expecting was a replay of a problem from 20 years before: we have seriously hard water, lime builds up on everything like stalagmites in a cave, and on our old toilet the opening at the bottom was limed up to half its original diameter. Ever heard the one about the monkey trying to shit a peach pit? It was like that.
There was lime build-up in the pipes,but nothing fatal. Same for the opening in the toilet's underside.Thinking the buildup might be further back I shone a light up the toilet's poop chute and was perplexed to see something yellow just visible at the top of the toilet's trap. I tried fishing it out,failed. Lugged the toilet into the back yard, turned it upside down,and kept working a light-duty snake through while blasting water backward through the system with a garden hose.
When I checked to see if I had
dislodged anything I found this:
Yes, a pencil. Probably one fallen from my pocket. I always carry a carpenter's pencil, regular pencil, and small marker with me, along with several sets of keys, a lighter, odd driver bits, dog cookies, and other odd detritus such as wire nuts,bolts, driver bits--your basic handyman pocket litter.
The toilet was reset with a new foam base seal, water restored, and thence forward any particular turd would be able to go join its brethren unimpeded as it rides on that odd water slide most of us have in our houses--and thinking of that makes me glad shit doesn't scream like riders on a roller coaster.The shrill, gurgled Wheeeees! would be depressing; the shit was having more fun than the human who made it. We have not yet ceased remarking gleefully on yet another blissfully perfect flush, but that surely will pass in time.
Long have I heard that the pen is mightier than the sword, and I kind of believe it.
Now I know for sure that the pencil is mightier than the plunger.