Home Sweet Minefield

There's nothing like having your own little slice of Americana- a house, yard and white picket fence that you hand made. It's a little slice of heaven assuming, of course, that your picture of heaven is sponsored by DeWalt and the Home Depot. Being a homeowner can have it's ups and downs. Today had a little of both, but mostly down.

I inherited a curse from my Mom and Dad. Both of them are the hardest working people I know. They do everything. Maybe too much. I grew up watching this kind of behavior. I guess it's like a kid that grew up in an abusive home or with a parent who was an alcoholic, only to develop those same habits in their own adulthood. You'd think it'd be just the opposite, but I guess seeing a certain kind of behavior on a daily basis has a way of burning it into your psyche. My parents worked. Like dogs. Alone. If something broke, Dad fixed it. There was no buying another. There was no calling a repairman. The one we had worked just fine when it was running. If Dad didn't know how to fix it, he did what any self-respecting man would do: he took it apart, saw what was on the inside and scattered parts everywhere until he figured it out. It was me and my brothers job to keep up with parts and pass tools like a nurse would to a surgeon. He was, and still is, the greatest repairman I've ever known.

Now that I have a home and a family, I know no other way of doing things. If something breaks, I fix it. If I don't know how to fix it, I take it apart and see how it works. And it has to be right. My DIY has a touch of OCD. The ADD gets in the way a little, but I can usually manage. In those instances where I find myself stumped, I call Dad. I spent some time on the phone with Dad today.

Today was, uhh... oh yeah, MONDAY!! I woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold. That worsened as the day went on. My wife called me at work three times today. Calls number one and two really set the stage for number three. Call number one was to inform me my son took another whack at terminating his own existence by sucking on a washcloth he swiped off the bathroom counter. The problem with that was that it was the Comet contaminated one my wife was using for cleaning. He won't eat food, but household cleansers are delish. Call number two was to tell me that the dog had an infected eye. Marvelous... back to the vet. Call number three was the pinnacle. The dog was digging in the back yard and the hole started filling with water. I knew exactly what that meant. Poo. And I gotta dig it up.

We live out in the county, so we don't have the advantage of a sewer system. We operate off of ye olde septic system. That is the most appropriately named system ever. Septic is from the latin septicus meaning "to putrefy." My lunch started getting septicus when I got home and started digging. I tried to keep my mind off what I was smelling by imagining I was Mike Rowe working my own personal little Dirty Job. I even came up with an operatic aria that went awry and ended up sounding like the Beverly Hillbillies instead.

Well, lemme tell you a story 'bout a man turning red

Working in a lab tryin' to keep his family fed

Then one day he was digging for some tubes

and up from the ground come a bubbling poo.

Sewage, that is

black water,

NAAAAASTY.

I went out there thinking I was Joe Don Fixit. There's nothing quite as demoralizing as thinking your number one, only to find yourself ankle deep in number two. So I did the unthinkable because I knew it had to be done. I called Dad and told him the bad news- I had to call someone in. And you know... while I know he would have helped me, for once I'm pretty sure he was glad we weren't going to try and take it apart to see what was on the inside.

The man told me it was going to require new drain fields and the Health Department inspector had to come see it before he could begin work. I know those government officials have a strange way of doing business, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a slam dunk... so to speak. I'm no geologist, but my yard is easily 20 feet vertically elevated over my neighbor's yard and whose house is only a couple hundred feet away. I didn't even have to stay at a Holiday Inn to know that is one steep slope. Unless that guy has an anti-gravity machine, I know where that pool in my yard is headed, and with a quickness. The good news is the sewage in my yard won't stay in my yard for long. The bad news is I'll never be able to look my neighbor in the eye again.

That brings me to where I am right now. I still have a cold. I still have poo in the back yard. And I guess I'll know more tomorrow. So do me a favor will you... go on into the reading room and give it an extra flush for me.