How Did We Get Here?

We survived Home Depot by the skin of our St. Bartholomew medals.

Our house is very old and only has one bathroom. The plumbing is from the Cro-Magnum Man period (or right after the Garden of Eden for the Evangelicals). Once a year or so everything that goes down one drain in the house...any drain... comes up through the bathroom. The entire system is clogged with heaven only knows what and tree roots. Raw sewage begins to erupt into the bathroom and down the hall way. As a result, we know the whole house is tilting forward, as the stenchey brown water rushes toward the living area.

It comes without warning. It reminds me of the Bible movie The Ten Commandments, when Charleton Heston warns Yul Brenner to let his people go. Yul Brenner ignores Chuck and a black smoke snakes through Egypt killing the first born. Perhaps Yul created the cloud himself with a pack of Camels.

It is a disgusting mess that we have to mop up with towels and disinfect like crazy people and keep Lysol in business. Then we have no where to go to wash the towels until the whole mess is fixed, so the stenchey towels mock us from a Hefty bag out on the porch until....

...we call the plumber. To get nearly as disheartening a feeling about the human race as you might get from a trip to Home Depot, stay home and call a plumber.

The plumber will have to come out with a giant electric snake and put it down the trap to clean out our system. But the only trap that is available to them is on the roof.

We've had to do this every year for years. But now there are almost no plumbers left who will go on the roof. Not even if we promise the pray to St. Barbara the whole time they're up there. At least I think St. Barbara would fill the bill. She was locked in a tower by her evil father. The tower had two windows in it and she had a third window cut in there to represent the Holy Trinity. So it doesn't seem like she was afraid of heights since she had all those windows to look out of up there.

The plumbers that will go on the roof want two plumbers to come here to go on the roof, one go on the roof and the other one to hold the ladder and laugh at the guy on the roof.

The whole thing makes me sick with anxiety. The mess, the expense, the plumbers and the way I can see the roof give with each step they take. The roof was built during the Ice Age. (Not sure where that fits into Evangelical fantasy time.) I have to pray to St. Joseph the whole time. He's a great all purpose saint! Carpentry, happy death, doubt and hestitation, dads, step dads, travel, Italy, workers, real estate...and I know for a fact he put a roof on the St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal after getting the whole thing built.

That's why we decided to grit our teeth (while praying to St. Apollonia) and head for Home Depot. Sister St. Aloysius was certain she had seen some product that can be dumped down the drain to kill roots. I think she was confused. I think what she actually saw was something to kill a tree stump after you've cut down the tree, but if she's right and I can avoid so much as getting out the yellow pages to look for plumbers, I'm already starting the car.

We felt terrible having to ask someone to come in to look after Sister Mary Fiacre while we were gone. To have to sit in the stenchey house for heaven only knows how long! I know people who have gone to Home Depot and returned to find their children grown.


At least Sister Mary Fiacre is oblivious. There's always a bright side, isn't there?

But we made it out alive! More on that tomorrow....