There are places you don’t ever want to go, and times you don’t want to leave the comfort and relative security of your living room. Yet last night at 9 PM I was down in my crawlspace facing a sump overflowing with raw sewage. This is not where you want to be, ever:
I’ve said it before, the crawlspace in my house is a place of misery. The smell is of death and…places forgotten. When you are brought across the river Styx by Charon, the chalky dust into which you take your first step into the underworld, it will smell of this. So why was I down there? Rewind one hour.
It was bedtime for the children, they were fed and bathed and clean. Passing through the kitchen I heard the sump pump cycling on and off. Funny, we haven’t had torrential rain in a very long time, what could be causing that? Then I noticed black sludge pulsing up in our kitchen sink. And more in our laundry room sink. Jesus. Christ.
So I took off the plywood door to the crawlspace, crouched down in the well of leaves and chicken poop, and peered in, expecting to see a rat king or a queen cockroach pumping out babies like confetti. Instead I found our sump as shown above, rising and falling, like the chest of an angry swap beast. The ultrasonic pest repeller had fallen in, STILL PLUGGED IN. So I had an electrified pool of sewage that was flowing uphill into my house.
“Babbo? Babbo? Can you read me a book?” Number Two asked from the back steps. Once I blinked a few times and unfolded myself from the gate of hell I went inside, put the kids to bed with some stern warnings about a “situation”, and went back out.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the center stage Uncle F$#k-Up. I fed a hose and water pressure drain-unclogger through the kitchen window and turned on the hose bibb, hoping to harness the mighty power of Neptune to force clean water down through the kitchen sink and out the waste line. In about ten seconds I heard water spattering and looked inside to see a geyser of water spraying the kitchen window FROM THE INSIDE. Words were spoken. Verdict: sewage water sprayed over the clean dishes in the dish drainer, cabinet, countertops and papers, floor, window. Inside, I found Number Two wandering the halls like a senile boarder, and I had to escort him back to bed with a mop in my hand.
Yeehah! Second option was to use the same water pressure down at sump level. Smart, no? No. This time the drain unclogger gurgled and groaned for a good minute until I heard water splashing out in the front yard. What in the–OH @#%K! Water had run straight up the vent, shot out the top like a sounding whale, and run down the roof. And when I say water I mean water and raw sewage.
Finally, FINALLY, I made a smart decision. I told my wife to find us a plumber, I went inside, washed my hands, ate some chocolate, and went to bed. This morning the drains are draining and I’ll just pretend this never happened. And I’ll remember that you shouldn’t put chunks of old meat down the garbage disposal unless you have a gator living in your sewer that can eat it before it clogs up everything.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Wait…chunks of old meat? Que? I’m amazed this didn’t happen last weekend when we had guests.