Septic Tank and Thanksgiving

1st Try


When you think of Thanksgiving you probably don’t think of a septic tank in the same thought. I hope I won’t ever again, but I have my doubts.


Wednesday we were getting ready for Thanksgiving. The plan was to cook a turkey in our Big Easy oil-less fryer. We have done this often enough to know what to do, which is just as well since I lost the instructions. Anna was working on the dressing preparations upstairs for cooking next day, and I was downstairs looking for the fryer instructions. I heard the commode flush upstairs and saw water gush out of the washing machine drainage pipe. I ran up stairs and reported it appeared our septic tank had problems. A second flush confirmed the situation. Shit! I mean, real SHIT! This was an emergency! The bathrooms were unusable and anything going down the drain was sure to come back up. We couldn’t ask our ten Thanksgiving guests to put up with that. The septic tank had to be pumped.

I called my 90 year old widow neighbor and told her about it and told her I was just going to dig a hole over her septic line and put one of those outhouses for sale on the side of the road near Cleveland, Georgia.


We called a septic company to send someone out. He had a very hard time backing his tank-truck and back-hoe down our driveway and finally gave up, parking on the street. That should have been a warning bell right away. The young man could not say enough good things about himself. He was there to save us, more or less. Before even taking a look at our system, he said he would take us out of danger – in so many words saying he was our savior. He reminded me a lot of the Stanley Steamer commercial carpet cleaner that takes his job a little too seriously. He continued to reference his new born baby at home. Good for him and his wife!
He took his back-hoe off the truck and had us sign approval, saying it would cost $150 more for that service. What? They offered a marked down come-on price of $198 to pump out the sludge, but it would cost $150 to use his equipment to do it? He told us he was going to give us a quick 101 Septic Tank Course which involved him telling us the numerous problems that could cause the tank to upchuck the stuff instantly.

When we told him to just pump it out, he said he could see that money was no object to us to get it fixed right that day. Don’t know where he got that! “Money no object”? Another alarm went off. Then he began to say the gas company would have to come out and paint the grass where the gas line was. He called them and left a message.

He told us that after he pumped it out he would get it repaired, even if it took all night. When asked how much that would cost, he proposed between $3000-$5000. Full Alarm! We were dealing with a shyster!

Anna said she would do without a septic tank before she would pay that much without shopping around and said just pump it out. After that, he stuck around maybe five more minutes and said he couldn’t wait around for the gas man to mark the yard, so he left. He wasn’t gone but 5 or 10 minutes when the gas man arrived who clarified since the meter was on the side of the house and the septic in the back, there was no danger. He said the septic man should have known that. So, we didn’t call him back.



Anna called her mother and arranged to divert our dinner to her house. We even had to go take a shower at her Mom’s. You just don’t know how to appreciate the conveniences we take for granted. Our daughter-in-law Sabrina stepped in, preparing the balance of the meal. What a life-saver! The next morning we cooked the turkey and the dressing and carried it to my mother-in-laws for a delicious Thanksgiving meal with our family.


Wednesday after the man left, Anna did research on the internet and found what proved to be a reliable septic tank company through Service Magic with good reviews through Kudzu.com. Friday the new septic tank man and his helper came, dug the hole, pumped it out, and looked at the setup, saw that the T section was damaged, which they repaired. Cost $1900, which is much cheaper than $3000-$5000.

The second septic tank man had a pot belly like I do. Denim pants have a tendency to slip down and rest at your ass crack, which necessitates pulling them back up from time to time. I think that is called plumber’s cleavage. When I first met the man, we both first pulled up our pants before we shook hands. It was like a ritual.

Once he had to stop work and sit down. He turned his boots upside down and shook them, explaining that his son likes to put pennies in them.


We thought it was all clear until Sunday water came back into the basement after washing clothes. So, we called the septic people out again Monday.


After digging up the yard again, he hooked up his pump to the house and sucked with all he had. Apparently there was a blockage that finally let loose. We hope it is clear this time. Keep your fingers crossed!!


2nd Visit

Didn't Ask, Didn't Tell

A couple of weeks ago Anna and I and raked and blew the leaves on my mother-in-law’s very long driveway. After we finished it looked nice and clean. I joked, “We better take a picture of it.” Meaning the leaves are not finished falling

The other day I was back over at mother-in-law’s house. This time I brought J, a Latino, to help me clean off the roof. The roof was covered in piles of leaves. J, with a blower, very skillfully blew the leaves off while I was on the ground raking and shaking bushes as the leaves landed on them. Afterwards, the roof looked clean like a new roof.


I thought I would recycle my joke: “I better take a picture of it to make it last.”

J looked puzzled and said, "Do you want me in the peecher?"

We went to our house and first cleaned off our roof. The shortest point to the roof is from the deck. I suggested to J that he put the ladder there to go up. J climbed the ladder to the roof and was about to heave himself off and up when the ladder slipped out from under him. Luckily, the bottom leg of the ladder slid against my shoe and wasn't going any further. J could carefully ease himself down. He said he thought it might be better to go up in front of the carport. I agreed.

I put J cutting vines and other plant life off or near the fence and while he was doing that I sucked up leaves with my blower/vacuum. J prgressively and systematically worked on the fence, leaving a clean fence behind him as he moved forward. It was looking so good it is hard to beleive that fence is at about 35 years old.

At one small area J was close to a patch of monkey grass. I told hlim my dog Willow likes to look for chipmunks in the moneky grass there. He said with his unique accent, "Chipmunks!"

I nodded and agreed, "Chipmunks."


After I sucked up all the leaves in the monkey grass and in the trees' edges I got my riding lawnmower and mulched the leaves in the yard. The first thing I noticed was my gas cap was off. I walked around the yard looking for it from the last time I mulched a couple of weeks ago and didn't see it. How it got off the mower, I had no idea. Anna designed a neat looking gas cap from aluminum foil and molded to the opening.

While mulching the leaves in the back yard I found the gas cap. I hit it with the mower. It lodged onto my blade and blocked the blade from mowing. I put the Snapper riding mower on its end and tried to knock it off the blade with a hammer and couldn’t get it to bulge. It was on too tightly. I decided I would have J help me put it on the truck and after I carry him home take it to the shop.

It was about lunch time. I asked J what he would want for lunch. He timidly asked if there was a Wendy's close by. Yes. He said he would like a chicken sandwich. I asked if he wanted their spicy chicken sandwich and he looked a little surpised, and said, "No, just a regular". Then I remembered last time he did some work here he wanted a Chic-Fi-a and then I also asked if he wanted it spicy. Which he looked a bit taken back that time too - like I was stereotyping him, which I guess I was.

By this time J was finishing up with cleaning the fence and had two truckloads to load up and carry to a landfill. The first load filled up easily because it had plenty of and limbs of two small trees cut down. I told J to spread a pile of mulch left over from a tree cutting we had not long ago and I asked the tree man to leave it.

The next truck load started off very slowly filling up. It was mostly tiny vines and it was time consuming putting on the truck. Then J took it on himself to start rolling a handful of vines which as he rolled was like a snowball, making it pick up more snow and getting bigger and bigger. Instead J had a vine ball getting bigger and bigger. By the time he got to the truck with the vineball it was bigger than the bed, but it was loose and springy. It took both of us to lug in onto the truck bed, with it hanging off both sides. J climbed up in the truck and jumped up and down on it and each jump it compacted itself into a smaller size. It was hard unloading alone, but it was an idea truck load.



When I got back J had finished spreading the mulch into a very methodical pattern over the ground

I asked him to help me load the lawnmower onto the truck and I told him how the blade had lodged itself into the gas cap. He wanted to see it. We lifted it up and with a hammer he dislodged it - it was fixed!

He saved us a bunch. We have been paying a group around $100 to clean my mother-in-law’s roof annually. Considering how much we were paying J and how much time it took, the roof cleaning cost about $5 this time. And the lawnmower, I don’t think the place I carry my Snapper would have even looked at it for less than $75. J is someone who is willing to work and do a good job. I think he takes pride in his work.


His work was done. I paid him and carried him home

I did not ask J if he was legal and he did not tell me.

Timber!

Today I will have to hit the floor running.

Wait. I am already up and I did not hit the floor running. I kind crawled out of bed in a stupor. First, let me drink a couple cups of coffee – then I will run.

In the morning, hopefully fairly early, a tree cutting company will come and do some cutting. In one of our tall trees in the back, about 70 feet up a huge limb collapsed during a storm a couple weeks ago. It landed on another tree and squashed it. And to top things off the huge limb is not severed from the trunk of the tree. So, one of the adventurous tree men will have to climb way up and chop that baby off from its mama…. But I think they will cut up the smaller tree the end of the big limb is resting on… or maybe they would want to first cut down the limb then go chain-saw crazy.

They have a job to cut down a big oak tree before they come here. They owner told me they should be here by late morning.

Today is Wednesday, which is Senior Citizens Day at the grocery stores. Can I do my exercise then rush to the grocery store and rush back before they arrive. I might ask myself, “Am I feeling lucky? Do I think they will run late like all contractors do? What’s it gonna be Punk?”

My Bachelor Life Stops Comes To a Halt

Today is the day I Anna returns from Texas and I am to pick her up at the Atlanta Airport at 5:09. I am to pick her up at the North Terminal, not to be confused with the South Terminal, which I did Monday.

Apparently the South Terminal looks like mostly Delta Flights covering the Eastern US. The North Terminal is other flights, such as AirTran, which Anna flew, covering Western flights.

And I am jumping up and down raising my hand saying, “But what about International Flights?” And the guide says, “Shuddup kid, ya bother me!”

Before I leave to get her today there is some quick housekeeping I need to do. For three days I have been in the frame of mind of living in a 9 room walk-in closet. There may be a jacket hanging over this chair, a pair of Levis on the floor by the bed, and another pair draped over another chair, and shirts here and there, and shoes strolled around like beer cans on the edge of the Interstate.

I need to pick up all the near-shots I made at the kitchen garbage can… just a few napkins and wadded up paper towels – there are no food morsels because I ate most my meals out.

However, I did put all my dingy underwear into the dirty clothes hamper. I have standards.

I also raked the leaves in the front yard and ran the lawnmower over it to mulch the scattered maverick leaves. Every time I turn on my lawnmower, with the same reaction as Provo’s Dog, my neighbor Jim comes over with his edger to edge my driveway.

I am a person who is something of a recluse and enjoys his privacy. Jim, with his edger, pops my privacy bubble. Although I appreciate his generosity, if I was that concerned over my driveway being edged I would have bought an edger long ago – and told Anna I just might do that. She said I might hurt Jim’s feelings. Jim is over 80. I guess edging my driveway makes him feel needed… and I get my driveway edged – it all works out, kind of the like the little birds that pecks the dingle berries off elephants’ asses.