Why I'm not a plumber

I think I've mentioned before in other settings, we moved into a new house about 4 weeks ago. It has not been the princess fairytale that we were hoping for. We have newly refinished hardwood floors that somehow produce some ick that stick to your feet so it looks like you've been walking in muddy water all day. The gods of wind and trees hates us too, with all the crap that happened from Ike. The house almost caught fire from the downed power line. And some unforeseen hole is in our house I'm guessing, as there are 3 to 45 house flies buzzing around on any given day. My towel snapping prowess has come in handy on that part. I've even managed to hit a few in flight. /flex

But that's kid stuff. I can do those problems in the dark, hands tied behind my back. I have been tempered from everyday problems. Tempered with nightmare.

It all started this last Friday. That morning when I took a shower, you could hear the toilet bubble air every 20 or so seconds. "Great" I thought. Most likely the kids flushed some baby wipes or something (they use those to clean the floor gunk off). I notice then after a test flush the toilet doesn't go down. Oh well, I leave for work. I'll mess with it tonight, as we have another bathroom they can use till then. When I get home, it's seems to have fixed itself. Yay! I give it a THOROUGH test after supper (don't make me say it), and so far all seems well. The kids test it in their own ways as well. Great! Nothing better than problems that fix themselves, right?

(Can you sense the appending doom?)

So after starting a load of laundry we start watching Speed Racer. I'm assuming it's a good movie, as I only saw the 1st 20 minutes. I go to the bathroom, so see the floor covered with water! The waste water from the washing machine was backing itself out the stand-up shower, since it's the lowest drain. Whew, I say, as it's at least fragrantly clean gray water. I shut off the washer, then spend 20 minutes soaking and cleaning the floors with bleach, just to be sure. Problem though, the water is still in the shower. Tried plunging it, but I just hear the water an air bubble out the commode and the sink. NOT GOOD. It's a Friday night, and unless we want to pay emergency $200/hour rates, we're screwed until Monday.

Then I remember. I'm a Man! With a capital M! I held onto my wiener, just for reference and comfort. I bet I can get this going. I've worked construction. So I head to the basement, with a determined look on my face. My wife says "what are you doing?", cause she obviously misconstrued that as a look of "I'm going to go f*ck something up." That's a common misconception for "other" guys apparently. As I enter the basement, I see the main drain sticking from the wall. It has that nice 4" plug on it, with the big square nut on the end. I'm no moron, I know if I take that off, all that water from the shower will come out. But that's what I wanted! To get that water out! I brought the proper tools, flashlight, and an old trash can that could hold like 12 gallons. Piece of cake.


I opened the cap....


So I'm standing in front of this, with that trash can ready to catch the water that runs out. I untwist it to the point I can just snatch it off and grab hold of the trash can. I'm trying to find the best word to describe what happened next. A torrent of water.. A deluge of water.. A metric ass-load of water.. (Take your pick) came FLYING out of the thing! It hits me square in the chest, and hard. The trash can I was holding filled up so fast I dropped it in seconds! I almost stumbled to the ground it was so forceful! As I jumped out of it's continued path, its strong enough to hit the opposite wall 10' away! The floor is instantly covered in about an inch of sewer water! After about 30 seconds, if finally starts to die down. FINALLY I think. I grab up the plug to put it back on, but WTF the pressure builds back up! It does this cycle about 2 times before the DOH sets in. We have a sump pit in our basement (more of a cellar, totally unfinished thankfully) so as the water drained into it, the sump would kick on and reapply it to the far wall. Being a quick thinker, I unplugged it, and finally the cycle stops.

Well, that was fun, eh? Might as well see if I can fix the clog. I find a 10' tent pole that happens to be there, and shove it in the pipe up to my wrist. Trust me, it's not sexy. I can feel the end of it pushing into something. Something I'm sure that's yummy. Since it's a tent peg, and I'm a doofus, naturally it does nothing to fix the problem. So I give up, put the cap back on, plug the sump back in, and let it pump it all back out of the pit. Well, I guess it wasn't a total loss, as I can hear that the water is going out now. Not completely fixed, but at least there's a path out.


That's when I decide to go back upstairs. But 1st I look at myself. Nightmare switches to Freddy Kruger mode. I'm COVERED in bits of toilet paper, and a multitude of other unspeakables! Let's put it this way, I could tell the kids enjoyed the corn on the cob the other day. So I strip naked, walk upstairs and out the side door (thankfully directly from those stairs, so I don't track it through the house), and while standing in my own side yard in the middle of town at the house that everyone likes to drive slowly by and see our tree damage, I'm hosing myself off. My confident wiener is looking for somewhere to go. I think it even had some travel brochures.

I go in the front door, walking past my loving family all nakedy and head straight for the shower. I say "loving family" as none of them looked up from Speed Racer as the fat man that smelled like poop walked by naked. Well, except my wife. My "confident" face was now morphed into my "don't ask me about it" face, which she again misconstrued to be my "please ask me why the house stinks" face. As I enter the bathroom, I hear Neal say "Mommy, I think Emma's poopy."

A competent plumber came out on Monday, and fit his big spinning spring snake thingy down the pipe, and pushed the blockage all the way out to the main sewer line. What caused the clog was there is a large vining plant just above the sewer line, and most likely the roots had entered the pipe. He said "it's good now, the water's flowing beautifully when I tested it now." I told him he has a misconception of what "beautiful" means. His wife works where I do, and when I told her that she said "well that's great, he calls me beautiful too."

It's now 7 days later, and after multiple cleanings by me with a garden hose and bleach, that basement is clean enough to eat off of. Our house when through he stages of smelling like a dump, to a sewer treatment plant, and is now on the final stage of smelling like a retirement home. Hopefully by this Monday we can pretend that the last week never happened.

By the way, I couldn't find my wiener all last week. I think it ran away from home. It sent postcards of itself at Mount Rushmore, with a little stick and handkerchief pack over it's shoulder. But it came home last night, so I sexed my wife for the 1st time since the move. Life is getting back to normal. :)