How Things Get Done

I've been having this recurring problem. My shower keeps getting clogged. I assumed there was probably some 50 foot long clump of wet hair stuck somewhere causing drainage issues. But apparently, it's bigger than that. I mean, the problem is bigger than that. Not the clump of hair is bigger than that. Ew. Now I'm grossing myself out thinking of a clump of wet hair BIGGER than 50 feet. Sick.

Anyways, the fixer men (as I like to call them) have come repeatedly to fix the problem over the past several months. They make my shower work for awhile, but then within a month or two, it's clogged again. And it's not a gradual thing either. Saturday, I took a shower, and everything was fine. Sunday, I took a shower, and within 10 minutes, I was standing in ankle deep water that took the next 5 hours to drain while my kitchen sink made very disturbing noises. So I called for help yet again.

Yesterday morning, two men showed up with the tools of the trade: a railroad nail, a hammer, and a garden hose. Naturally, they showed up right as I was finishing a giant cup of coffee so I REALLY needed to pee very badly but I couldn't on account of the fact that two men were standing in my shower peering down the drain.

They eventually decided that their first move would be to shove the hose down the shower drain. And much to my consternation, about five pounds of terrible smelling silt and rock came erupting up out of it. All I could do was look at them in shock and yell, "I PROMISE ALL THAT DID NOT COME FROM ME." I mean, everybody has those days when you come home just covered in rocks. But I make sure to brush them off outside, not wash them off in the shower. Because OBVIOUSLY rocks clog showers. So I don't know who put all those rocks down there, but IT WASN'T ME.

Anyways, the two men cleaned my shower out for me. Then they tried running some water down the drain to see if they had already fixed the problem. It was a good news/bad news situation. Because the water drained out of the shower, no problem. However, it all came up through my kitchen sink. And then flooded the cupboards under my kitchen sink. So we got that under control.

Their next move was to determine if a pipe was clogged somewhere outside. This involved them taking out their giant rusty nail and hammer and using it to demolish the sidewalk outside of my house by slowly chiseling away the concrete in the general vicinity of where any drainage pipes passed. They slightly miscalculated the location of one pipe which resulted in a lovely fountain at one point. Then they left and said they'd come back tomorrow.

Yesterday's tomorrow is of course today's today. Clearly.

True to their word, they showed up once again today. AT SEVEN AM. When I was still in bed. They promptly announced that they would be building me a new septic tank because the old one is full. That made a lot of sense in my half awake state. Until I got more awake and thought about it. BUILD me a new septic tank? Seems sketchy. Also, can't you just pump out the old one? Apparently we don't do that in this country. So I chose to trust them. ish... And they got to work digging up the old septic tank.

Except that, true to form, the only tools they brought with them today were a hammer, some various sized screws, a pair of pliers, a crowbar, and a hoe. And people, EVERY SINGLE ONE of those items was used in the digging process. So go figure that out.

They dug  for a little bit. Then they declared that it is too hot, so they left and said they'll be back tomorrow to dig some more.

Fingers crossed that they bring an actual shovel. And that I will someday soon be able to flush the toilet without fear of it erupting out of some other pipe in my house.