The Horror Continues

Friday night, we all thought with great relief, that My Honey had fixed the plumbing problem.  First my brother snaked the line and then, when My Honey got home, he used an even bigger snake. 

Confident that all was flowing properly, I took a shower on Saturday morning.  And then I started a load of laundry.  I could hear the screaming from the front of the house all the way down the hall, through the kitchen, passed the family room and down the hall into the office.

“Shut it off!  Shut it off! SHUT IT OFF!!!”

The water from the washing machine was coming up every drain in the house: both toilets, both showers, and the kitchen sink.  Water was everywhere.  It took seven thousand towels to mop it up.  This exact scenario happened a number of times as different attempts were made to clear up the clog. 

And you thought it was humid outside.  I’m here to tell you, with the addition of the humidity brought in from our swamp cooler and now the man-made lake in the middle of the house, you can barely breath here.

My Honey valiantly snaked the drain again.  And we tried again from the laundry room drain.  We ran bladders down the pipes trying to force it.  We cried.  We swore.  We tore at our hair.

My mom was being a total champ.  She’d come over in the morning to “play”.  We had all kinds of plans to go shopping and have lunch.  Instead, she got to take my kids to pick up donuts while My Honey and I stood over open holes in the floor where toilets used to be and walked squishing through the house.  I assured her that we wouldn’t be long – either it would get fixed or a professional would be called.  We started a game of Scrabble.  I was called away from the game a number of times to assist with plumbing issues and my mom got tired of waiting for me to take my turns so she made my words for me.  Some how I managed to lose that game.   Curious, don’t you think.

Hours later, My Honey admitted defeat.  I called a plumber.  I chose the one who’d advertised with a magnet on the front of the phone book with a 25.00 coupon.

“Mr. Rooter, how are you today?”  She was very chipper.

“Well,” I began, “we’re quite damp over here.”

The operator chuckled at my wit.  She promised to send someone within the hour.

I was standing out in my front yard to talk to her – it was too hot inside.  I felt the first rain drops hit my head.  Excellent.  I’ve been lamenting the lack of rain for weeks.  Now I had water coming out of everywhere.  Thank you Gods of Over Kill.

I took the kids and my mother and we fled, leaving My Honey to deal with the plumber.   We had to leave – the kids were having a fantastic time peeing outside, but I was not willing to participate in that particular ritual.  It’s really remarkable how there is nothing in this world that makes you have to pee more than being absolutely forbidden to do so.

We were at Target when I got the call. 

“Roots.”  Just the one word, that’s all My Honey said.  I started to whimper.  That is the worst word you can hear from a plumber.

We have an enormous fir tree.  I hate that tree with teeth-gnashing passion.  The tree itself is fine – it’s just a tree, after all, and I’m not insane.  The reason I hate it is due to it’s tenants.  There are pterodactyls that live in a nest up there.  That is the only explanation I can come up with for the sheer size and volume of bird poop I find on my car EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Apparently, the Army men met up with the tree’s roots that are slowly strangling my plumbing and created the catastrophic plug.  I have to take a day off work because the plumber, a really nice young man named Aaron, is coming at 9am to run a camera down the drain to find out exactly where the roots are causing the problem. 

Over the course of this week, I will have my driveway torn up while sewer pipe is being replaced.  I’ve had a toilet sitting in my hall since Friday.  You have to walk passed it to get to the bedrooms.  I have a raving case of PTSD as it relates to water/drains/flushing. 

My Honey and I are steeling ourselves for the estimate tomorrow – I’m expecting well over 1,000.00.

It’s a damn good thing we have the 25$ off coupon, huh?