Thursday, May 24, 2007

Septic blues

Every once in a while our septic goes kablooey. This morning it erupted. Jim and I would always spend a couple hours trying to snake it out which was always a big, stinky drag. I'm just not willing to do that on my own and I certainly WON'T do it with Dad. First I called a plumber. He suggested we have it tank pumped out before trying to mess with the plumbing. I called Royal Flush. While they were here Dad came over to "help". The guys dug down and found that the tank had been covered with a big sheet of steel that was wedged under a pipe, possibly the water main. Dad for some reason thought the guy was trying to pull a fast one. He said the guy was working me, like I was some dumb rube who was eager to hand over hundreds of dollars so the guy could....what? All he said was the steel is under the pipe and once they get it open they might not be able to close it. I couldn't see how that was ripping us off. But Dad yelled at me and said, "You've never done business with these guys! I HAVE!"

I called Drew. He did his best to keep Dad on the phone but of course that works for only so long.

He was getting this way the other day when the AT&T guys were here. He always thinks people are out to deal him a raw one. Dad, please shut up and go home.

When they finished up Dad stood on my front porch and watched them. He said he wanted to make sure they left without...what? What were they going to steal? Then he started going off about "these guys" and blah, blah, blah. I told him I was done and that I didn't want to hear any more. He kept right on going and I kept saying, "I'm done, I'm done, I'm done." as I'm slowly shutting the door in his face. He stuck his hand in the door so I couldn't shut it. Man, he can be such a total bastard. I said, "I'm DONE!!!!" He removed his hand and finally went home. Then he called 2 minutes later and told me he wants a copy of the receipt. Yeah, whatever.

I took a Xanax and went to bed. Later I got up and took a couple truckloads of yard sale stuff down to the sales shed. I'll work on it some more tomorrow. Then I went to meet Jeff at Mt. Rubidoux for a walk. I was sitting in my car balancing my checkbook when he walked up. His head was completely shaved, like BALD!!!! I actually jumped and gasped! He had done it as part of a cancer fundraiser at his school. They had raised a bunch of money so the kids got to shave his head. Oh my god. He actually doesn't look bad bald. But no, no, no. Maybe when he's 70 he can go all Kojak but right now he still has a nice head of hair. He said this is a one-time thing.

Once I got over the initial shock I laughed my ass off.

Tomorrow, lunch with Virginia. Then it's the final push for the yard sale. Oh yeah, the bees are back in the pepper tree outside the sales shed. Gotta deal with that, too.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did the septic guys fix it more seriously than you and jim could do so it stays fixed awhile?

Remember when I went down and picked those tangeloes for breakfast? I put my foot in about a foot of mud and when I pulled it out, I realized it was sewage. Yeeeeewwwwwww! I guess that's why the tangeloes are so good.

My grandma got like that: everybody's trying to rip her off. She got verrrrry stingy, which was better than worrying about her sending money to Nigeria, anyway. But I think your dad does a little of both.

--leg

Anonymous said...

P.S. Gary shaved his head once just for fun. One day walking in Ocean Beach a guy across the street yelled, "God damned Hare Krishna!!" I yelled back, "He's going through CHEMO, asshole!"

Heh heh. Not my finest comeback.

--leg

vivage said...

man, i wonder what i'm going to obsess over when i'm old? i think getting taken advantage of is pretty common. you know like stealing from you. my mil does that but she's also had stuff stolen so i can understand.

babor is bald huh? billyc did that when he played the part of daddy warbucks, people thought he looked scary.

vivage said...

heck, i almost was bald when i was in my early 20's. hair was a quarter of an inch.

Donita Curioso said...

Dean- The tank has been pumped out but that won't take care of the tree root problem. The pipe needs to be Roto-Rooted. The septic guy told me about this stuff you can flush down the toilet once a year to keep the roots out.

Yeah, Dad's funny about the whole getting ripped off thing. He thinks EVERYONE is out to get him. Thing is, Dad has never been all that ethical himself.

I think your chemo comeback was pretty good!

Virginia- Heh! I can imagine Bill shaved bald. But scary? Naw.

You can pull off the almost bald look. You've got a nice, petite Sinead O'Connor kind of head. My head is shaped kind of weird. I have this angled flat area at the back that bumps out at the bottom. Jim used to love to cup his hand around it and make fun of me. Of course, I could have said a thing or two about his gigantic melon.

Another thing about Dad. Not only does he think that people are stealing from him, he also thinks everyone is lazy and won't do their jobs properly. When the AT&T guys were here he told me to get them to trim the tree branches that are brushing up against the phone line. He said, "It's their line, it's up to them to keep it clear." Yeah, right. I'm going to tell these guys who are just there to install a brand new system that they're not totally familiar with to trim DAD'S tree? I told him no, I wasn't going to do that, he should get Hector to come trim the tree. He wouldn't let it go. I finally had to walk away.

Yesterday was the first time he got nasty with me since we started him on the new mood stabilizer medication. Even though he was being a jerk I do think it works. That's the kind of situation that could have sent him into a major rage. So even thought it was hard to deal with it wasn't as bad a it could have been.

Anonymous said...

Look, I wrote a song for you! it's a 12-bar blues - "The Septic Blues" (1st verse is for Dean!)

I got the septic blues.
I got the septic blues.
All over my shoes,
I got the septic blues.

I got the helpin' Stan blues.
I got the helpin' Stan blues.
Doncha think I've paid my dues?
I got the helpin' Stan blues.

I got the yard sale blues.
I got the yard sale blues.
I'm sellin' organs, cords, and shoes,
I got the yard sale blues.

I got the deal-with-shit blues.
I got the deal-with-shit blues.
Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose,
I got the deal-with-shit blues.

I got the whataya do blues.
I got the whataya do blues.
Sometimes I think I'll have some booze,
I got the wh a t aaaa ya doooooo blues.



copywrite 5/25/07 Mary

Donita Curioso said...

HAR!!!! I love it!!!!!