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.