In which you all immediately feel very, very sorry for Bread.
This morning, the toilet backed up. All over the bathroom floor.
When I went downstairs to get ready for work, the floor was wet and Bread had a box fan running to dry it. “You,” he snapped, “will not put any more kleenex in the toilet!” (Everything is my fault.) As I stepped into the bathroom, he said, “Don’t go in there, the fucking toilet overflowed!”
“I have to take a shower and get ready for work,” I replied.
“Fine! Whatever,” he said.
I stepped into the shower pan, took off my undies, turned the water on and bathed. When I got out, I threw a towel on the floor and stood on that to put slippers on, then went and dressed in the laundry room.
I gave Bread shit for blaming the overflow on me. “It’s not from kleenex. I suppose the fact that the plumbing backs up every year around this time is totally irrelevant,” I said.
He went on again about how my flushing kleenex down the toilet was going to stop.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, whatever, dude. You know more about plumbing than I do, but I fail to see how a bit of kleenex can hold a candle to an entire turd in terms of load on the system.”
“Trust me. Toilet paper backs it up.”
“Uh. Okay,” I said.
“You don’t have to run the snake!” he said.
“Oh, poor you. You have to do a chore today,” I said.
“I don’t want to do this shit!”
“Dude, it’s not like you’re busy. Plus, I’m guessing the toilet overflowed all over the floor because it was running, because you weren’t paying attention when you flushed it.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, frowning.
(Aside: the lever broke some months ago, so that one had to remove the top of the tank and plunge her entire arm in there to pull the stopper up in order to flush. I got sick of it right quick and solved the problem with some vinyl-covered clothesline wire and some packing tape. There is, as they say, nothing more permanent than a temporary solution, so if you come to my house in 2018 you’ll have to pull the green cord hanging out from underneath the slightly-ajar tank cover in order to flush the downstairs toilet. I guarantee it. The point of all this is that if the clothesline doesn’t retract properly, the toilet runs because the stopper’s still up.)
Basically, Bread hates plumbing, especially the part that deals with shit. He has a very healthy dislike for black water; it creeps him out. Our house is a zillion years old and we’re not entirely sure how the septic system works, but every year in January or February, we have to rent a snake and snake it out. It’s just part of living there.
“I hate this fucking place,” Bread said.
“It does present its difficulties,” I replied. I didn’t bring up the two thousand things I hate about it, because since he’s been home for the past three weeks and has done a little housekeeping of his own he’s started to regale me upon my return from work at night with statements like, “Now I understand what a pain in the ass it is to try to keep this fucking place clean! I spent all afternoon decobwebbing in here, and you can’t even tell.”
You’re preachin’ to the choir there, sweet thing, you’re preachin’ to the choir.
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Sounds enchanting. My Ma and Pa have a septic tank system … the field next door has THE best grass; but when it blocks up it’s v unpleasant 🙁
My parents have a cabin in northern Wisconsin and they have absolutely no idea how the 100 yr+ plumbing works and about once a year, every year, for the past 10 or so, their backyard has mysteriously turned into a rancid swamp. Very gross. The toilet itself also rocks off its base constantly because they wood floor in the bathroom is uneven and we get a lot of leakage in there, too. Ewww. I’m sorry, I made this posting even more gross. Nothing like sewage in the morning! Good luck with the overflow, I feel your pain, or my parents do.
I immediately felt sorry for Bread. True. Now then, with a private septic, you need to flush a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ down there once a month. Forget the name, but you can get it at Menards or prob’ly a Home Depot or hardware store. See, I also am on a private septic… one of three in all of Iowa City (my neighbors on either side being the others). Anyway, this crap you flush down there keeps it ‘clean’… will eat through tree roots if they’re growing into the line, but it won’t hurt the trees.
Rid-X! Don’t ask me how I know that.
The hippies we bought the place from apparently used to use a lot of that ‘natural biotic’ pipe cleaner stuff you can get at health food stores; the upstairs toilet is infested with it. If you pee in it and don’t flush it immediately, the whole bowl – and tank, weirdly enough – blooms with this foul smelling bacteria. I mean, FOUL SMELLING. The whole bowl turns black and rancid and it stinks.
I bleach the hell out of it occasionally, but the stuff won’t die.
Yeah, natural biotic my booty. Gimme the chemicals that’ll keep it CLEAN and plug free.
Well, a septic system is based on natural biotic activity. Rid-X is a proteolytic enzyme. It ain’t chemicals that go munchin’ through all that poop breaking it down into happy friendly fertilizer.
In fact, a lot of septic problems are caused by flushing too much bleach and chemicals, which kill off too much of the septic critters, which slows the digestion of, uh, septic material and backs up the system.
We’re on a septic system here and try to use biodegradable products–especially laundry products, a lot of water goes thru the laundry–purely for these highly practical reasons. And it seems to work. We’ve never had a single problem with the septic system. Tho granted our house might not be as old as yours.
But you (Mush) probably know all that, I was just responding to Cootera.
I originally came to the comments section to say that I’m on Bread’s side on this one (sorry, Mush). I’ve dealt with my share of plumbing problems (seems to be my department, along with spiders and drilling holes in things–maybe I’m the man after all), so I’ll testify that massive amounts of paper are more often the cause than massive turds. And kleenex–that’s even thicker–I shudder to think.
But the worst of the worst–and pardon the upcoming graphic description–are caused by shitting on top of toilet paper. The paper kinda wraps around the shit, and then the shit can’t get past the paper, and the paper won’t budge because it’s wedged in there by shit. And in this position, neither material can be squeezed down to a manageable size for the pipes. Shit first, flush, then paper–that’s the rule.
We have a sign on our worst toilet: “toilet paper only and small amount per flush.” Since we put that sign up, there have been no more problems. Previously, lots of problems.
For what it’s worth, that’s my $.02.
Well, damn, birdfarm, why don’tcha just come along and burst my bubble! (I don’t buy kleenex, btw, it was all TP.)
🙂
Bubble-bursting is my specialty. Says so on my imaginary business card. 😉
My imaginary business card says, “You have just insulted a woman. This card has been chemically treated. In 72 hours, your dick will fall off.”
I used to imaginarily give it to people a lot when I was younger and easier to insult.
*snort!*
Why stop just because you’re harder to insult?
The insult is in the intention; even if it doesn’t hurt you anymore, their dick should still fall off.
*laff*
hey everyone, almost finished my 1st month of my 2006 diet. Phendimetrazine does control my appetite and I’ve lost 8lbs. On on the treadmill 5 days and walking the dog briskly at night.