THE GREAT TOILET WAR OF 2013

Hello CTB Family,

Your friendly, neighborhood, self-appointed Bishop here.  Today I would like to share with you the horror of my Monday night.  This terrible evening shall henceforth be known as:

THE GREAT TOILET WAR OF 2013

In the basement of the house I rent there is a free-standing toilet.  There are no walls around this toilet.  There is no curtain.  There is no stall, no door.  It stands alone, off to one side of the room.   The only person comfortable using this free-standing, porcelain throne is my four-year-old boy, who has no need for privacy.  (He’ll just drop his pants and pee any where.)

When I came home from work on Monday, I found our sump-pump had burned out sometime during the afternoon.  There was a little rain leakage in the basement, but nothing serious.  “No problem,” I thought.  “I’ll replace it tomorrow.”

This was a huge mistake.

By 8:30pm there were rivers in my basement and I was fighting to get everything not in a plastic bin up off the floor before it was ruined.  It was a battle I was winning, until my free-standing, pointless toilet decided to play Old Faithful.  With no warning, a river of rain water and sewage suddenly erupted from the porcelain throne, mocking my efforts to keep our positions safe.  The murky liquid flowed freely into my basement quickly coating the floor in with a slick paste of indescribable mess.

At first, I simply tried to minimalism the damage; but thirty minutes into the battle a foot of rain-sewage filled the room.   The stench was overwhelming.  I emerged from the basement, my feet covered in pooh-water.  First round went to the toilet.

My wife and I agreed that she and the kids should abandon ship.   We packed bags and off they went to Grandma’s house, leaving me alone to fight the good fight.

Round two began with a trip to Wal-Mart to find a new sump-pump.

I know what you are thinking.  “Bishop, a sump-pump is not going to help you this point in the war.”  In hindsight, I see this was true.  But at the time my thinking was clouded by sewage fumes.”

I wondered the aisles of Wal-Mart for while before finally finding the weapon I thought would save the day.  With a sump-pump in hand, returned home and waded back down into the murky mess, hoping to pump all the sludge away.  Rain was still coming down hard outside.   Old Faithful had been spewing for over an hour and there was a full foot and a half of shit-rain in the basement.

I sloshed my way to the hole where the burned out burned out sump-pump was located, bent over, and began feeling around for the contraption.  The hole was deeper than I expected.   Pooh-water came up over my elbows.   I grabbed all kinds of things in that hole.  Most of them were slimy.  Many dissolved in my grasp.  I’m not sure any of them were the sump-pump.

I blindly searched for another thirty minutes. The pooh-rain was up to my knees and still coming.   My eyes stung and my nose burned.  When my skin began to sting, I decided it was time to pull out.   Round two also went to the toilet.

Defeated, I climb the basement stairs and exited the side door into the slowing rain, where I was greeted by a Baltimore City firefighter.  Hope sprang in my chest.  “With the Baltimore City Fire Department on my side, there is no way I’m going to loose round three!” I thought.

“I’m so happy to see you,” I said.  “Do you have anyway to remove sewage from a basement?  My toilet and I are at war!”

“What?” he replied.  “Um.  No.  We used to do that kind of stuff.  But not anymore.  Do you have some plywood?  Like a big sheet of it?  Maybe this big,” he said holding his arms out wide.

I stood stunned.  The rain eased my stinging skin, but not enough.  “Yes,” I said.  “In my basement.  But it’s covered in pooh-water.”

“Hmm,” he said thinking.   “Do you think I could fish it out?”

“Not without going for a swim.  Why?”

“Well…see… I kind of ran over that manhole over there with the truck,” he said pointing to the street behind him.  “And the cover broke in half and then fell down the hole.   It’s full of water and I can’t find the cover anymore.  I mean, if someone falls in there, they’re going to die.  I need something to cover it up.”

“Sorry man,” I said.  “I got nothin’.”

“Could I steal that tree limb?” he said pointing at a fallen limb in my neighbor’s yard.

“Um?  Sure?” I said.  Exhaustion was catching up to me.  My skin still stung.

The firefighter went and grabbed the limb and stuck it in the hole.  It looked like a tree was growing out of the middle of the street.  Then he put a cone in front of it.   Several other firefighters joined him around the hole to admire his handiwork.  They congratulated each other, hopped back in the truck, and drove away.

My hope for winning round three having left with the firefighters, I returned inside.  The rain had slowed to a drizzle.   I descended the stairs to view the damage.  Old Faithful had ceased his assault on my basement.  He rested quietly in the filth he had spewed.  There was a little over three feet of sewage-rain in the basement.  I went upstairs, took a shower, lathered my legs and arms in antibiotic cream, and went to sleep, defeated.

It’s taken the rest of the week to make the house livable again.  The city came and fixed the manhole on Tuesday morning.

Now CTB Family, you might think this experience would bring a Bishop down.  You might think this a depressing story; a tragic tale of woe.   But good stuff can always be found if you look hard enough.

THREE GREAT THINGS THAT CAME OUT OF THE GREAT TOILET WAR OF 2013

1) Our basement has never been so clean.  There was a ton of stuff covered in pooh we got to throw away.   Sure, some of it had sentimental value; but we weren’t using it.  Now our basement is clutter free.

2) In the end, I won the war.  After the “Restorative” cleaning crew spent 7 hours power washing and scrubbing the basement, it is cleaner than it has ever been.  And, my landlord agreed to remove the toilet.  A plug now rests in its place.  This makes me happy.

3)  Finally, I learned something.

I now know, “ If you can’t see a sump-pump, you can’t replace a sump-pump.”   It would have been nice to have learned this lesson befoe dipping my arms elbow deep into pooh-water; but even so, I feel more prepared to tackle the world after this experience.

It’s like GI Joe use to say, “Knowing is half the battle.”

It appears the other half Joe didn’t mention is wadding in sewage water up to your knees while you do battle with an evil toilet.   But I don’t blame Joe.  “Knowing is half the battle and the other half is sloshing in shit!” wouldn’t have made  fora good cartoon ending catch phrase.

Sincerely,

The Bishop of CTB