Dad's Project - Septic Tank

It all started with me uttering the words: "My toilets aren't flushing right."  It was July 2003, my first summer back home, and I still getting used to living across the road from Mom and Dad.  Mom was still in the nursing home in town, recovering from her shoulder replacement surgery.  Dad was particularly antsy with Mom being away.

Saturday morning at 7am, I heard a knock on the door.  It was Dad with tools in hand.  He wanted to run a sewer tape down the clean-out trap.  But he would need my help, since he's legally blind.  So I reluctantly opened the hatch to my crawlspace and in we went.  I was holding the flashlight while Dad was trying to open the trap lid with a huge pipe wrench.  Then the pipe wrench would slip off.  I'd line it up again.  Dad would pull on the pipe wrench again.  Slipped off.  Line it up again.  Slipped off.  This repeated for at least 45 minutes.  Then I started to wake up a bit, and get angry.  Why in the hell am I under my house early on a Saturday morning with my blind, deaf, persistent father?  I was not beyond calling a plumber, and besides this was not an emergency!  I crawled back outside to get some air before I snapped.  About this time my brother pulled up in the truck.  He asked where Dad was.  I pointed to the crawlspace.  I asked my brother if we put the hatch back on the crawlspace entrance, how long before anyone would come looking for Dad.  We both laughed.  Dad finally emerged from under the house and announced that the trap lid was "tighter than a bull's ass".  "We're gonna have to get the backhoe and dig up the septic tank and clean 'er out!" 

Dad got his probe and began poking in the yard trying to find the septic tank.  Only my deceased uncle knew where it was located.  The abstract only showed that the septic tank was somewhere southeast of the garage.  Now one thing about my uncle Jeff, he liked to cut corners.  He built this house over the well so that he wouldn't have to run a water line.  So I began to think, if the well is under the front porch, how far from the house could the septic tank possibly be?  I got the probe from Dad, took two steps from the garage door, poked it in the ground and hit something hard.  I found it.  My brother came along with the backhoe and they commenced to digging. 

They got the lid off of the septic tank and it looked something like this.  But it only had about a foot of water at the bottom.  Dad got a ladder and went down into the septic tank with his boots.  Dad figured out that a tile that came out of the side near the top was never connected properly so they would have to dig up the yard some more to find where it connected to the main tile in the field.  My brother then dug a trench following the tile ditch.  My brother and my dad worked on this for several days.  Then my brother tells me that they are going to have to finish all of this later, because it's time to harvest the wheat.  What about my yard?  And the septic tank?  "We'll work on it again when it rains."  Can I use the toilets?  "Yep."

My backyard now had an open septic tank two steps out the back door, open trenches, and mounds of dirt everywhere.  And lots of flies.  During this time, my uncle John and cousin Teresa stopped by to see the house.  Teresa commented, "That's a real nice cement pond you got there, Jerry!" 

Finally we got a rainy day, and they started working on it again while I was trying to work from home.  Dad had me flush the toilets so that he could see if it was functioning properly.  He was standing at the bottom of the septic tank and would yell, "Flush 'er again".  In about 30 seconds out would come a rush of water from the top of the tank, splashing down by his feet.  A while later, I needed to take a crap.  I went outside and told my brother that I was going to run down to Mom and Dad's place to use the shitter.  He said, "We'll take a break.  Go ahead and use the toilet."  Dad climbed out of the septic tank.  The two of them sat on a mound of dirt and waited for me.  Gee, no pressure.  I used the toilet as quickly as I could.  I flushed and then went back outside just in time to watch my waste go flowing out the drain pipe into the septic tank.  My brother looked down into the septic tank and said, "Been eating peanuts?"

Then they just about had it all put back together.  The lid was in two sections each about 6 foot square of cement.  My brother was lifting the cement lid by an iron ring that was imbedded in the cement and a chain hooked to the backhoe.  Suddenly, the ring snapped and the lid went crashing into the septic tank and cracked down the middle.  They spent the next hour fishing out the big chunks of cement out of the septic tank.  They were now going to have to patch the cement lid back together.  But not right now, because it was time to bale straw for the next two weeks!  Then at the end of the baling, my brother was planning on going to South Carolina.  I'd had it.  It had been three weeks since they started on this project.  I told him that they had better get that septic tank back together before he left town.  He and Dad worked on it and finally got the lid back on the septic tank and the dirt shoved in.  My brother returned in the fall and planted grass seed where he had dug up.

The kicker of all this was that it didn't fix the original problem.  Yes, Dad did find a problem with the tile which could have caused a sewage backup if the septic tank ever fills all the way up.  But the toilets still had the same sluggish flush as before.  Dad asked me, "How are them toilets flushing now?"  I replied, "Just fine.  Thanks!"

Lesson learned:  Don't mention home repairs around Dad.

Comments

[Jamie Dawn]

Part of that post could have been entered in my Gross Story Competition, and it would have been a close second to the story you entered. All this potty talk is grossing me out!
Since toilets are being discussed, I have to say that the toilets in Japan are exquisite. You may want to look into getting one of those as a reward for enduring all this toilet hell you've been going through.
You can be thankful you've not had to resort to using a chamber pot.

[Clarence]

Now this is my kind of Blog and my kind of topic.
I like your style of writing too.
Thanks for dropping by my place, reading my drivel and taking the time to leave a comment.
It's always good to meet another Blogger.
Your Dad sounds like a great man.
You had better be good to him. You will miss him when he's gone.

[Tjilpi]

"I have to say that the toilets in Japan are exquisite. You may want to look into getting one of those as a reward for enduring all this toilet hell you've been going through."

My deceased friend Vivian spoke Japanese and lived in Japan for a number of years.

He told me that Japanese men have a saying:

"My neighbour's wife, but my own toilet."

How exquisite can you get?

[Sorry Jamie]

[Mike (ex scientia)]

Toilet hell pretty much sums it up. :0)

[Jamie Dawn]

I must make a distinction between the fancy toilets in Japan (the ones with the water sprays, fan, heated seats) and the Japanese squat toilets.
The squat toilets are HITONIOUS!
I had to use one out of necessity, and it was not fun. Pretty hard on the legs to squat like that for any length of time. Luckily, I took care of business in a hurry!

[cliff]

I was okay till I read the peanuts quote. Good one Jerry. I'd love to in the room when Ralph reads this.
I had to take the small lid off of our septic tank during a family reunion to stir it and get it to flush. I went back in and said "I have an annoucement here, someone is not chewing their sweetcorn well enough". That shortened the ol party a bit.