A Shitty Day . . . Literally

Like a lot of people during the holiday season, my wife and I are watching our budget.  We’ve got a long list of Christmas wishes to fulfill.  Throw in a ski trip or two for my oldest, and maybe a weekend family get-away during the holiday break, and we’ve got a lot of stuff on our “radar,” so we are doing our best not to spend money unless we absolutely have to.

My wife’s comment of “Remember Clay, no unnecessary spending today,” is becoming almost as common as my comment of “Babe, any chance of having sex later tonight?”

So when water started leaking in through our floor drain in the laundry room last week I chose not to call a local plumber.  First of all the water leak was very small (a hand towel could soak it all up . . . and yes, I probably shouldn’t have used our white hand towels for this job), and it only seemed to happen when we ran the shower in our boy’s bathroom.  Not a big deal.  Obviously at some point I’m going to have to call a plumber, but I decided the problem was small enough where I could wait until after the holidays.

On Monday of this week I was surprised to find a much larger pool of water on the laundry room floor.  Now my wife had taken a shower prior to going to work, and I had run a load of dishes overnight, but I did not anticipate the amount of water that I found when I went to the laundry room.  Hand towels did not cover it, and instead I had to use BOTH of the bath towels that were down there . . . on a separate note I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to need a fresh set of towels soon.

But again I chose not to call a plumber even though my wife asked me to do just that.  I can do a whole lot more than keep up with a leaky floor drain for the next 30 or so days.  A plumber is going to charge me eighty bucks just to come out and tell me that I need pay $500 to have my sewer line rodded.  I’m not paying for that right now.  I’ll keep up with this.  I’ll check it on a daily basis.  I’ll keep a fresh set of towels close by.  I’m not going to be defeated by some floor drain leak.  Not when we’re less than 30 days from Christmas.  I’m on this.

It seems irony has a sense of humor.

The noise coming from the laundry room was loud enough to startle the dog from his usual perch on the chair in front of the living room window.  I got up from the table where I was enjoying my sports page and coffee, and along with the dog, went downstairs.  I could actually hear water coming up from the floor drain as I stood in the basement looking at the laundry room door.  I looked down at the dog who looked back at me as if to say “Don’t fucking open that door, dude.  Just turn and run!”

But despite the look from the dog, I opened the door anyway.  To say that there was a fair amount of water coming up from the floor drain is like saying that I like sex.  It’s a major understatement.  I paused for only a second before heading in.  The water was everywhere.  It was not bubbling up through the floor drain, but streaming upwards.  And before I go any further there are a few things you probably should know:

• It was SEWER WATER.  You know what they say . . . if it looks like shit . . . and smells like shit . . . it must be shit . . . well yeah.
• We do not actually have a floor drain, but a floor cap where the drain should be.  I didn’t put the cap there. It was simply there when we bought the house.  On two other occasions when water has seeped into the laundry room I have taken the floor cap out and the water has receded back into the drain.
• And I was wearing socks.  Athletic ankle socks to be exact.  Not sure why.  I knew what was probably behind the door when I first went downstairs, and yet it never dawned on me to put shoes on.

For a brief moment I simply stood in the middle of this ever-expanding pool of water.  I was like a field general taking inventory on what needed to be done and in what order.

• Get ski clothes off the floor.
• Get all the food we just purchased at Costco off the floor.
• Remember next time to listen to your wife and put the food ON THE SHELVES!!!  Damn.
• Find the large pliers to remove the floor cap.
• Keep the dog out of the laundry room.
• Protect the basement carpet.  That’s my perimeter.  Don’t let the water infiltrate the basement.
• Don’t panic.

Started grabbing ski coats and snow pants and chucking them into the basement.  Grab the boxes of candy bars, granola bars, cereal boxes, poptarts boxes, family sized bags of chips, and canned soup and jammed them onto any available shelf I could find . . . and Jesus, no wonder we’re trying to save money . . . we’re buying bulk food like we’re starring on the National Geographic Channel’s “Doomsday Preppers!”

Grabbed the pliers off the work bench and removed the floor cap.

You know, people tease me that I like to exaggerate.  I think most good story tellers exaggerate at least a little, and I pride myself on being at least a decent story teller, so okay, I exaggerate a bit.

But know this . . . when I say a six-foot stream of SHIT WATER shot out of the floor drain like a geyser in Yosemite National Park . . . maybe, it was really a four-foot stream of SHIT WATER.

I not only was hit SQUARE IN THE FACE with this stream, but was covered in it when it came raining back down.  I was literally covered in shit.  I was frozen in fear.  The dog was barking loudly as he slowly backed up in the basement.  I’d like to think he was barking to tell me to get out of there, but I think he may have been barking to say “Don’t come out, stay in there, you dumb son of a bitch!”

A new priority list came over me.

• Get the floor cap back in.  Of course the floor cap exploded within that geyser-like stream, so at this point the cap’s whereabouts are unknown.
• Call my wife.  Yes, she’s at work in Chicago, but for some reason I feel like I should be on the phone with her.  I don’t know why.  Like a dying man wanting to be surrounded by family before he takes his last breath.
• Don’t think about the shit water that is burning my eyes, dripping from my ears, and leaking out of my nose.  Adding human vomit would not help the situation.
• Grab a plunger.

I soundly believe that you can fix pretty much ANYTHING with duct tape and a plunger.  I swear by this.  Okay maybe a Swiss Army knife too.  And a lighter.  And some gauze.  And maybe cable television.  And a naked woman.  But let’s focus here.

So I grab the plunger and start plunging at the floor drain.  Literally I’m PLUNGING THE FLOOR DRAIN!!  Think about that for a moment.  41 years old.  College-educated.  Husband.  Father of two.  Home owner.  And I’m plunging a floor drain.  Not sure what part of this story will bother me the most a week from now . . . but the plunging of the floor drain is certainly in the running.

And I think that’s when the utility sink exploded with everything that we had ground up in the kitchen disposal last night.  I mean, I can’t be certain about it, but I know it wasn’t shit.  It was definitely food coming up out of the utility sink.

The dog flinched for a moment, and then took off up the stairs.  I never saw him again.  At this point and a new list of priorities came over me.

• Panic

However, as luck would have it, the explosion in the utility sink stopped the explosion coming up from the floor drain.  Who knew the two were connected.  Maybe they’re not supposed to be.  Hell, maybe that’s the problem in the first place.  Suddenly it became very peaceful in the laundry room.  There was no water coming up from the floor drain, just water running back into it.  And there was nothing exploding out of the utility sink.

I stood perfectly silent as if any movement might set off the demons in my plumbing again.  I watched as water, crap . . . I’m pretty sure literally crap . . . and pieces of what I believe were pasta . . . floated past my feet . . . yeah, still in socks . . . and into the floor drain.

When all the water had receded, I found the floor cap, and jammed it back into place.

I’m thinking at this point that I should have called the plumber when my wife asked me the first or second time.