Skrip - tyur' - i - ent: adj. Possessing the violent desire to write.

11/09/2006

#176 In which our hero discovers an alarming smell in the basement, with a yet again more alarming source.

Yesterday, while I had a few free moments on my hands, I wrote an additional post just so I wouldn’t be caught empty handed for today. There hasn’t been a lot of interesting stuff happening, and what with trying to post every single day, I was afraid I wouldn’t have new and fascinating topics to write about. Then, the Blog Gods noticed my attempt at circumventing the system and decreed:

Know what? You’re afraid that nothing interesting will happen to write about? Let Us help you with that: Let There Be Sewage In The Basement!

I was heading out the door to meet some friends and I had to duck into the basement for a second. When I got down there I was assaulted with a horrible smell; the unmistakable odor of raw sewage (how I’m familiar with this smell is a story for another time). Being a rational adult, my first thought was “What the fuck is this?”

There was a big wet ring around both drains in the basement, with little bits and chunks of… something … mixed in for good nature. Clearly, the drains had backed up, and if it wasn’t shit it sure smelled like it.

I called The Scientist down and she was as horrified as I. But, being that she is without doubt the awesomest wife in existence, she agreed to call the home warranty and plumber and let me go play with my friends. Thanks honey, I owe you an orgasm.

Of course, nothing could be done that night. The Scientist called and made an appointment today, and was able to bail work early to meet the plumber at home.

Now, here’s the thing: both of us are mightily sick of dealing with home repair. I mean, we’ve only been in this damn house for two years, and already we’ve had a guy fix the furnace twice; had the hot water tank replaced; had the gas line between the street and the house replaced; had the gas meter replaced; had the guest bathroom fixtures replaced; had the kitchen faucet replaced; and, and… am I forgetting something? Well, you get the point, it’s been a lot of stuff to fix.

My hope is that having everything shit the bed so soon means that we’ll live in this house for decades without having to lift a finger, but we’ll see.

Anyway, the plumber comes out and snakes the line and declares it clear. But, he says it clogged in the first place for a reason, so he wants to run a fiber optic camera down our crapper to see what’s up.

Sigh. More money going -- said un-ironically -- down the toilet.

Hopefully it will be grease build-up or something like that… worst case is a broken line or tree roots or tree roots that have broken the line.

Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll make for a great post.

UPDATE: And it just keeps getting better: the camera revealed what is most likely a broken pipe in the yard.
  • Cost to dig up the lawn and replace it: "a couple thousand"
  • Percentage that our home warranty will cover: ZERO
Christ! Hopefully they're discover that Indian burial ground while they're in there and put some souls to rest so we can live in peace.

1 Comments:

Blogger Lil Kate said...

Man! If it's not one thing, it's another! I really hope that this is the last major repair that you guys have to deal with for a long time. I believe that you have officially met your quota.

8:46 AM

 

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