So long shitpipe

I’m waiting for the plumber and his helper, and of course my body is wanting to rid itself of all daily and monthly excretions even though it’s only been 5 minutes since the last time…

Our sewer pipe started leaking the day after we paid the plumber’s deposit on the upcoming bath reno.

(The pipe is above grade in the basement since the house is built into a hill.)

The good part was that we caught the leak before it leaked on anything important (our newly started seeds were in the vicinity and thankfully they’re not poop plants).

The bad, is of course, the bucks.

And I’m home all day psyching myself out that I really don’t need to pee, etc., for the next 6 or so hours, and my mouth is foul cotton from pee-prevention self-imposed dehydration.

They’re here now, and I can hear their chatter about the greatness of Soundgarden, some pleasant teaching murmurs and reassurances, the recent oft-repeated statement about how we just finally had a month of winter after spring was here in February and now it’s spring again and it’s really nice, and the occasional PG-rated expletive that makes me duck and cover my head for fear of shitsplosion, though I’m on the floor above.

And our former shit pipe is lying shattered in the yard while they replace it with PVC. The old pipe ended up cleaner than expected – I was terrified since the last owners had children and an excessive amount of “flushable wipes” that absolutely aren’t, stacked on each commode.

The dog is being a trooper – sometimes a bit scared at the biggest bangs, but mostly head-tilting at the floor – lately we’ve had success in managing some outbursts with cheap shaky cheese.

Cast iron is called “the 100 year pipe.”

Ours only lasted 64 years.

In our last nearly 100-year-old house, the cast iron was still fine – as was the lead water pipe – I hear our old city is now dealing with some Flint-ish issues – the plumber there told us it’s fine, just let the water run for a minute before drinking it – but I was still dubious…

I regret having a bagel for lunch as I can’t lube it down as much as I’d like, and I’m getting grumpy from not having the coffee I’d like/sorta rely on again. The plumbers are back from their lunch and their public bathrooms (though they’ve got to have some sort of bottle john in their vans too, right?) and I wish they’d just hurry up.

Some dentists will knock you out for a cleaning if you’ve got the dentine-manipulation phobia, but I wish there were a similar service for home repair workers – lack of functioning plumbing anxiety is a very real thing, dammit – or at least offer a speedy done-before-you’ll-have-to-pee-next service – I’d pay a little more for that.

Yesterday I slapped a fresh coat of paint on one of the basement walls.

It needs another or two coats, along with the longer wall, but it feels cleaner already. I’m not too squeamish about unfinished/creepy/spider-infested basements, but I like the laundry area to feel like a slight oasis – not a give me a fruity drink and a scented breeze, but I come to you with muddy stinky duds and you take the stank away and if I drop a sock on the way to the drier, I’m thankful if I don’t have to re-wash it, kind of thing – more of a temple perhaps? I have yet to try the newly yellowed rug in there, but I’ve another waiting if it doesn’t work – one that the dog has peed on more than once (but I’ve washed) so I don’t trust it in the main unsupervised areas of the house.

The basement utility room re-freshening has been on my to-do list, but way down toward the end – once I get more stuff out of the house and the storage areas re-configured. We put the shitty, but not that old, former kitchen cabinets down there and I’d like to paint them either white or something outlandish. Well, maybe a jadeite green, not that outlandish. But now I want to bump it up the list – once the bathroom is done, it will be glaringly not up to snuff with the rest of the house.

And the boiler has begun to shart the bed, so that business will need to be replaced (or repaired) by next winter…

The plumber is doing quite well by us this year.

And they’re done.

And the dog just peed in front of the washing machine.

(Luckily there wasn’t a rug down yet.)