The Sewage Treatment

I take many things as signs of our societies impending demise, but none so personally as the asinine complexity of the personal tax return.

This morning, while sitting in bafflement over the spectre of the combined existence of a both a standard deduction and a standard exemption in the Virginia state tax code,The Girly announced that the basement was flooding.

Although her voice had the tone of "Get on the Arc!", the reality was a small flow was seeping in under the basement door and slowly growing in a half hearted attempt to flood the basement. She had just moved a load of laundry to the dryer, and discovered the creeping intruder when she turned to go.

Actually, I would discover that it was actually seeping around the basement door. The landlord had constructed a dam, of sorts, across the door jam to help keep rainwater from getting in. he dam was now at capacity and the floodway was the rotted door frame. The house came with the whole "the basement used to flood a lot" caveat, along with the promise that the flooding thing was handled.

I thought it was a little odd that the water was getting in after the rain. In Dover, a waterfall formed on the rock wall in the basement during heavy rains. During one storm, a dog toy got wedged in the sump pump, and we ended up with a small lake. It was great. But things always got better after the rain. It seemed a little odd that the flood would come a day after a good soaking.

Whatever the source of the water, the drain outside the basement door was obviously blocked. I fiddled with a coat hanger, but in 12 inches of dark water in a dark stairwell, I wasn't going to get anywhere without the water first gone, and the flooding needed to be stopped, lest the trickle reach something fragile. I grabbed a bucket and started bailing water from the pond into the sump, so the sump pump could pump it out of the house, into the (accursed) bamboo stand that straddles the property line. I cut a piece of screen (we have a huge roll aluminum screen for the deck) and put it over the top of the sump to filter the leaves that came with it, to avoid another clogged-pump disaster. The Girly started wrangling the intruder with a mop.

After a few bucketfuls, the pond started to smell bad, and a thin, white skum started accumulating in the screen. My science geek mind clicked into gear. The rain water must have formed a layer over brackish water underneath. The drain must have been clogged a while, I thought, for this much bacteria to form and the leaves to dissolve to make a such a soupy film. How cute! pond scum in my own backyard!

Did I mention it smelled pretty bad?

I optimistically repressed all alternate theories for the source of the water. Surely this would be something i could easily fix with the dinkly little snake or a coat hanger. I could be back to work in an hour and life would be peachy.

I kept bailing. An odd little stinky ball of mud got stuck in the screen, and then there was some long, stringy bits of paper. Something that looked a lot like a bit of diced onion. And then, there they were, loitering at the corners of the pond. Turds. The sewer line was clogged. A busy morning of showers, cooking, shitting, and clothes washing, had finally filled our little backyard cesspool to capacity, and now it was coming in the back door to find a new home among the christmas ornaments.

Fortuantely, I had bailed enough water so that the flow of water had been staunched. I called the landlord. We haven't talked in months. He greeted the news in stride and told me that he was expecting it. This has happened before, it seems. Yearly. An un-ending battle against roots.

It's really hard to get a plumber on a saturday afternoon. They charge weekend fees and tend to be busy. Ultimately, Arturo showed up in our driveway. He looked at the puddles, the toilet, and instantly gave the highest bid. But, he was also here now, and not Tuesday afternoon. I signed the form. He produced a snake with a 1 H.P. motor.

Of course, not all was instantly fun for Arturo. While it was easy enough to get the toilet of its mountings, the house is not well grounded. The first outlet he tried resulted in the arcing to the sewer line. Bright enough that the white PVC pipes flashed. It was impressive. Arturo suggested that we should also consider an electrician. I reminded him that the landlord had grand plans for a McMansion that our little 1950s prefab is sitting in the way of.  After some minutes of loud snaking, the water started to drain out the basement stairwell. The turds lay beached on the concrete. Yummy.


Arturo then put a camera down the pipe. He hooked up a DVD recorder to it. On the screen, we could watch the sewer pipe get increasingly ovular, and there were little bunches of tree roots sticking out in places. Sewer pipe? More like black diamond turd obstacle course. Beware of wipeouts. Unfortunately, the fee for a DVD copy of my sewer pipe video was $80. Arturo suggested full replacement of the pipe, and was even helpful enough to paint a large white stripe on the green at the front of the estate, and provided a estimate of work that is approximately equal to two months of my salary. (That's a formal wedding proposal in some cultures.)

Arturo's a great guy, but I had to turn him down. I'm sure I'll see him again next year.

After he left, I got a shovel and garbage bag and rounded up the beached brown whales.

It felt so nice to have a shower.

And then, I finished my taxes, drank wine, and ate cake.