Per Request - The Poo Water Story

I was telling Patty this story the other day, and she told me it was definitely a story for the blog.

Kay. So. Our main sewer line is jacked up. It has pipes from 1945, which have been infiltrated by tree roots. Via rooter, we've pulled out clumps of roots, dirt, some earthworms (not kidding), etc. We have our own ecosystem in there. It gets backed up maybe once per month. I get post-traumatic stress disorder every time, I swear. To dig up the old line and put in a new one is $8,000. We don't have $8,000, so we just deal with the sewer back-ups.

We've learned that putting certain things down our disposal in the kitchen backs up the sewer line. Lettuce is a big no-no, apparently. As is any kind of casserole. We throw a lot of food just in the garbage, because we're so scared of backing up our sewer line.

My mom and dad went out of town for a week, and the day before they left, Ma called me: "Hey, I made turkey noodle soup tonight. I don't want to toss it. Do you want to eat it for dinner tomorrow night?" I never pass up free food, so of course, I went out there to Mom's and picked it up.

The next morning, Mom and Dad were driving to the airport, and Dad called me. He said that they were sick all night, and they were thinking that there was something wrong with the soup. He just wanted to let me know, in case I wanted to dump it. I decided to dump it. Once you get food poisoning, you will do ANYTHING not to get it again. Even dumping out yummy, fresh turkey noodle soup.

So I hung up with Dad and got the turkey soup out of the fridge. I opened the lid, and the onion pieces in it were BRIGHT BLUE. I don't know why. I don't know what causes onions to turn the color of holiday LED lights, but that is seriously how bright they were. I was like, um, yeah, soooo dumping this....

And it was SOUP, for Pete's sake. Not casserole or steak or jerky or something. Runny, mooshy soup. It shouldn't have caused a problem.

Boy, was I wrong.

So I disposaled the soup, started the dishwasher, and went downstairs to throw a load of laundry in the machine. And that's when I saw a huge puddle of... waterish, poopish, turkey noodle soup-ish, stuff. It was bubbling and flowing up out of the drain by our washer. I freaked out, stopped the dishwasher, and called Ben. Luckily, this time it didn't smell like poop. It just smelled like turkey noodle soup. But I know that there was sewage in the mixture, too.

Ben left work early, rented a rooter, and came home. He needed my help with the rooter. I had to stand and pump this thingey with my foot to keep the rooter machine unwinding, while Ben used both hands to shove the rooter line into the sewer. It was hard work. He was sweating. We ran into something and couldn't go any further, so we decided to retract the rooter line and shove it in again. As we were retracting, we realized that the rooter line was splashing poop water everywhere. It was so gross. I held up a towel in front of me while I pumped with my foot, and the rooter line was flicking poo water all over the towel.

You know what was weird? It didn't smell like poop. It smelled like the Tube in London. It's a very distinct smell. It was so weird. I haven't smelled that smell in 13 years, but it took me right back to the fall of 1997. Maybe it was the rooter machine. Who knows.

Once we reversed all the way, we put the machine into "forward" mode again, and rammed through some tree roots, then retracted it again. Yet the water remained standing. We couldn't figure it out. So we put the rooter into the drain line, and that ended up being the ticket. There was turkey noodle soup clogging the line that goes from the washer drain to the sewer line. Pretty soon, all of the turkey/poop water drained down, and Ben and I had to mop the floor with bleach water.

We washed that towel with bleach, but the bleach couldn't make a dent. It still smells like poop. So we threw it away.

Good times, my friends. Good times.