NEW STORY TITLE: STRAIGHT DOWN THE TOILET
Enjoy reading…
Okay, by now most of you know I’m out of work for another three weeks. To make my life more fun, my septic tank backed up. Two hundred fifty bucks to pump it. For exercise I’ve been walking around the neighborhood. I’ll be honest, 75% of my neighbors are jerks, but the few I like I’ll stop and talk with. I was telling my friend Brian about my septic problems, and come to find it out he was in that line of work for eleven years.
“It’s not your tank. Bet you a sixpack of beer your filter is clogged.”
I didn’t know septic tanks had filters, but they do. Brian explained what I needed to do, then spent twenty minutes telling me about the things he’d found in septic systems. The one that stuck out was a job where he pulled the cover to check the filter, to find it clogged with almost thirty condoms. He said he made a little joke about maybe he needed to toss them in the waste from now on, when suddenly he noticed how pale the guy was. Seems they had never used a condom in eighteen years of marriage.
“How did it turn out?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I cleaned the filter, and he wrote me a check. One thing though, when I left he had on a pair of kitchen gloves and was putting all the rubbers in a small bucket.”
And away we go.
…
Well, isn’t that just wonderful, I thought, as I looked down. Beth came screaming into the living room, saying the toilet exploded. By the looks of it, it had. Knowing very well Beth wouldn’t do it, I cleaned the bathroom up, then went outside to check the cleanout plug. As soon as I opened it there was a gush, and I had to go take a shower.
It was Saturday afternoon, and I was wondering how expensive an emergency call was going to be, when Beth marched by me, suitcase in hand.
“I’m going to stay with my sister until you get this fixed. Call me when you get it done.”
I went back inside, stripping just inside the back door. Screw this, I’m taking a shower. The water can just flow across the back yard. I thought as the water washed over me about my life. Married eighteen years, one daughter seventeen, away as a counselor at a summer camp, saving every dime for college.
Thought about Beth, and the growing distance between us. Seems I was even more clueless and fumbling now than when we were first married. And sex was history. She was only forty-one, still good looking. Maybe it was a female thing. I’d read about early onset menopause while I was in the doctor’s office last month. Maybe that was it. Whatever, her attitude was starting to bleed over to Amy, and the hurt on her face when her mother went off was more than I was willing to bear. We were going to talk when she got home. I’d hit my limit, and honestly, if she didn’t like it, I didn’t give a shit. I was tired of living in a toxic environment.
Clean, I decided to go out to the pub, get one of those great burgers, maybe have a beer or two. And I’d make sure that if I needed to go, I’d do it there.
I was going out, and saw Gus getting his evening paper. The light bulb went on. Gus used to own a septic tank service. He’d still have contacts, maybe he could get someone over.
I stopped, and we shot the breeze for a few minutes before I got around to my question. He laughed.
“Wanna save two-fifty?”
“Damn right I would. How?”
“I’ll bet you the tank isn’t full. I think your filter is clogged. All you need to do is clean it out. Tell you what, I’ll come by tomorrow after church and show you how to fix it.”
I was so happy I invited him and his wife to the pub. They spent the next two hours talking about the strange things they’d pulled out of septic tanks. Seems his wife Mabel was a dispatcher where he worked, and sometimes rode along if nothing was going on. One woman had lost her engagement ring, and she paid to have the whole tank filtered looking for it, only to find it behind a plant on her counter. Another guy followed them to the dump station, seems he thought he was about to be busted, and had dumped eighty thousand dollars worth of cocaine down the toilet. They actually found the cocaine, and he got a nice long jail term.
The next afternoon they were there at one-thirty. We located the cover and pulled it. There was the filter plain as day. Gus had me man the hose as he pulled it. He started grinning about the time it was halfway up.
His wife looked down and giggled.
“I’ve found your problem, Chad. Might want to toss these in the wastebasket from now on.”
I looked at what he was holding. My filter was blocked with condoms. Twenty-three, I found out later. Stupidly, I wondered how a bunch of condoms had managed to find their way into my septic system. Then it hit me how.
My face must have showed something, because Gus and Mabel quit talking for a minute.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation, Chad. Maybe you’ve had guests lately? Or maybe, uh, Amy had some friends over when you weren’t there?”
“Really, Mabel? You think I’d have guests over long enough for them to get it on this many times? Or that my seventeen year old daughter is suddenly hosting orgies? No, there is only one explanation here.”
They spent another forty-five minutes talking me down before they left. I waited until they left, got some thick rubber gardening gloves, and picked the rubbers up carefully, putting them into a triple layered baggie, then into a plastic container, and putting it into the little freezer in the top of my shop fridge.
Then I went in to the house to think. Fucking Bitch! A lot of things fell into place. We were done. No negotiation, no apologies. Finished. Only one thing stopped me from pulling the trigger. I wanted to know who it was.
I didn’t bother to call Beth. Let her stay where she was for awhile. I had plans to make. I spent the rest of the day in my shop.
Amy needed picking up the next day, and I had already put in for a vacation day to do it. It was the first time I’d seen her in seven weeks.
She gave me a tremendous hug, and told me some of the adventures she’d had wrangling eleven year old girls who thought they were twenty. Really, that young? Man, was I getting old.
It wasn’t until we were almost home before she asked about her mother. I told her about the septic tank. “So it’s fixed?”
“Yes, it’s fixed.”
“Does Mom know?”
“No, I tried calling last night and this morning. Remember, she was supposed to be with me when I picked you up. We’d planned a whole day of family activities.”
Amy pulled out her phone, and called her aunt. “Is Mom there?”
“No honey, your Mom is at work.”
“Well then, how come everyone said she was off when I called?”
“Um , er, um.”
“Here’s the deal. Mom better call me back, from a company phone, not her cell, in the next twenty minutes. If not, I’ll have Dad drive me over to check. And if she blew her own daughter off for some monkey business, this little bird is going to sing to her father. I know things. Twenty minutes.”
Thirty minutes later she called, out of breath. “Hi, honey. I’m so glad you’re home.”
“Yeah, I could tell when you showed up to meet the bus.”
“I had something come up.”
“I can just bet. Goodbye, Mom.”
She called me, ranting about how disrespectful she was. “Well, look who taught her. It will be tomorrow before the tank gets pumped. Amy will be at my parents tonight, if you’re interested.”
“I won’t…”
I hung up and looked at Amy. She sighed.