free from the smell of poo
Well this weekend gets the rating of "Suck" on the big Suckometer. We had plans, plans were changed--but how they were changed involved some icy snow, a basement sink full of raw sewage, a cold for me, and a defiant streak from A that drove D temporarily insane. Want the juicy, smelly details? Read on. If not, I don't blame you.
Snow, first of all. I'm over it. Done. I liked it before, it was fun, but enough already. I want some dang hoot global warming. We were supposed to go to a nice Mexican restaurant with new friends on Friday, but that got cancelled by the inch of ice pellets.
Saturday, I was all ready to head out with my best friend, came back in the house from dropping off something at a neighbor's, and smelled poo. Not a new thing--I thought it would be the third day in a row that A dropped the bomb in the potty, so the smell would be a cause for celebration. How wrong I was.
There was raw sewage in the basement sink, and more came out every time we turned on water, flushed the toilets, or ran the bath. It was on the floor, soaking into things that were lying there (thankfully, D did laundry already so it wasn't a total loss of clothing), and reeking in a big way. D was cleaning off the floor, putting junk in the garbage, and getting the place ready for a plumber to do the deal. We've gone through this before. Our house is older than some, and clay pipes were used for sewage. Clay pipes get invaded by tree roots, which catch all sorts of lovely things, and then regurgitate them into one's basement. Last time, the plumber pulled out roots and objects he called "Sewer Rats." Let's just say that wads of cotton with string attached should not be flushed. You don't ever want to see them again.
This time, I thought it would be my fault again: we started using so-called Flushable Wipes with A (Kan-doo, which is probably going to be sued for false advertising. Everyone I talked to says, Don't flush them! Well I flushed a few.). I thought they looked cool, and would be one more thing to encourage A to enjoy the experience of wiping his own butt. What was I thinking anyway, I don't really know. He's not supposed to enjoy all this, he's just supposed to quit crapping his pants so I don't gag every day. Simple.
We called a lot of people for plumber recommendations, no one answered, or had anyone who worked weekends. Meanwhile, A had had 2 accidents in his pants, D was frustrated and so was I, and I sent A to the naughty zone for being defiant. As he sat there, pantsless, he peed all over the carpeting on the steps, with no remorse. D, tired of dealing with crap he can't fix, decided then and there to pull up all the carpeting on the stairs. I was fried, annoyed and etc, wiped A off and took him to eat lunch at Einsteins. Then I dropped him off at nana and pop-pop's, and they took him for the night, bless them. D and I patched things up, turned the heat off in the house so that the stink would stay in the basement, turned it back on when we were too cold to care any more about stink or anything else, waited til 1:30 AM for the plumber to come, and then went to bed (after I totally kicked his ass in Yahtzee. It was quite satisfying).
The plumber finally came this afternoon, it was roots and not wipes that gummed up the works, but we're still out 300 bucks. The smell is much better, I took an amazing shower, sprayed perfume on myself and felt like I lived in a palace. Now for the cold to go away.
Snow, first of all. I'm over it. Done. I liked it before, it was fun, but enough already. I want some dang hoot global warming. We were supposed to go to a nice Mexican restaurant with new friends on Friday, but that got cancelled by the inch of ice pellets.
Saturday, I was all ready to head out with my best friend, came back in the house from dropping off something at a neighbor's, and smelled poo. Not a new thing--I thought it would be the third day in a row that A dropped the bomb in the potty, so the smell would be a cause for celebration. How wrong I was.
There was raw sewage in the basement sink, and more came out every time we turned on water, flushed the toilets, or ran the bath. It was on the floor, soaking into things that were lying there (thankfully, D did laundry already so it wasn't a total loss of clothing), and reeking in a big way. D was cleaning off the floor, putting junk in the garbage, and getting the place ready for a plumber to do the deal. We've gone through this before. Our house is older than some, and clay pipes were used for sewage. Clay pipes get invaded by tree roots, which catch all sorts of lovely things, and then regurgitate them into one's basement. Last time, the plumber pulled out roots and objects he called "Sewer Rats." Let's just say that wads of cotton with string attached should not be flushed. You don't ever want to see them again.
This time, I thought it would be my fault again: we started using so-called Flushable Wipes with A (Kan-doo, which is probably going to be sued for false advertising. Everyone I talked to says, Don't flush them! Well I flushed a few.). I thought they looked cool, and would be one more thing to encourage A to enjoy the experience of wiping his own butt. What was I thinking anyway, I don't really know. He's not supposed to enjoy all this, he's just supposed to quit crapping his pants so I don't gag every day. Simple.
We called a lot of people for plumber recommendations, no one answered, or had anyone who worked weekends. Meanwhile, A had had 2 accidents in his pants, D was frustrated and so was I, and I sent A to the naughty zone for being defiant. As he sat there, pantsless, he peed all over the carpeting on the steps, with no remorse. D, tired of dealing with crap he can't fix, decided then and there to pull up all the carpeting on the stairs. I was fried, annoyed and etc, wiped A off and took him to eat lunch at Einsteins. Then I dropped him off at nana and pop-pop's, and they took him for the night, bless them. D and I patched things up, turned the heat off in the house so that the stink would stay in the basement, turned it back on when we were too cold to care any more about stink or anything else, waited til 1:30 AM for the plumber to come, and then went to bed (after I totally kicked his ass in Yahtzee. It was quite satisfying).
The plumber finally came this afternoon, it was roots and not wipes that gummed up the works, but we're still out 300 bucks. The smell is much better, I took an amazing shower, sprayed perfume on myself and felt like I lived in a palace. Now for the cold to go away.
2 Comments:
You poor thing!Here's a quick scatalogical story with a laugh at the end - about my son W, who is 17 now.
One evening, when W was about 2 or so, I made tuna mornay for dinner (you'd probably call it a tuna casserole here) and while it was cooking, I popped W in the bath. Just in time to stop the mornay from imminent carbonisation, I dashed back to the kitchen to take it out of the oven and leave it on the kitchen bench.
On my return to the bathroom, I discovered W had pooed in the bath and was chasing it all through his bubbles with his toys and up the sides of the bath and ... you get the picture.
So I had to remove as much disintegrating brown matter as I could (BY HAND), shower down the baby, wipe down the bath, disinfect the toys ... well I'm sure you can imagine the routine.
Once I'd dried the re-bathed and re-shampooed W and got him into his PJs, I returned to the kitchen - where the cat was sitting on the bench eating the cooling remnants of our dinner.
Hope you get over your cold soon!
Lesley Z
Oh my gosh, MK! And oh my gosh to Lesley too!! Those are pretty hilarious stories.. after the fact, of course. MK, I can't believe D decided to pull up the carpet right at that moment. Did he really do it? I agree with you on the snow/ice thing.. go away! It's gorgeous today, then in a few days it's supposed to be cold again. Grrr. As for your plumbing problem, which I'm glad you got fixed, by the way, I had a similar problem. We live in a house where we rent the upstairs. Our downstairs neighbor came rushing upstairs and said that all sewage water and everything else in it was rushing down through the washing machine pipes and all into the basement. My husband and I went to the basement to check it out, and clean it up (the neighbor was useless), and while we are cleaning it up, we hear her mom flushing the toilet upstairs and out pours more sewage into the basement! Nice! Luckily, it didn't cost us anything to fix since we rent, but sure enough it was the cotton rats that caused it. (It's pretty gross the way I have to dispose of them now, ewww, but I guess it beats cleaning up the crap in the basement)
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