Thursday, April 30, 2020

O Happy Day


It's another day in Pandemic Land, and I'm alive and kicking. I suppose that's not too shabby.

I always set the timer on the coffeemaker before I go to bed so that I can head straight for it as soon as I come downstairs. This morning, though, some errant grounds had apparently clogged up the works, and a bunch of my precious coffee spilled all over the countertop. I still had coffee, but that little incident should have warned me it was gonna be one of those days.

A while back, water began backing up in the downstairs toilet. My efforts to remedy the issue proved for naught, so I called my trusty plumber, who determined there was an obstruction in the sewer line that leads out to the road. Using a snake the size of the Anaconda in Anaconda, he cleaned out the line enough for it to be usable for a time. However, he indicated a boulder had somehow gotten lodged in there, created a helluva clog, and that, eventually, that section of line would need to be dug up and replaced. That job was set for today.

Unfortunately, here in Greensboro, we rarely get rain. We get torrents. Deluges. Floods. And last night, we got one. Front porch under water again. The stuff was still coming down this morning, but the plumber called and said they'd come on out as soon as the deluge moved to another town.

Well, I needed to do a small bit of laundry, and I figured I'd do it before the guys came out and dug a hole to China in my front yard. I got it done, all right. But then what do you suppose I found? Yep — due to the deluge, that sewer line had gone right ahead and backed up real good. So good that all the water in the washing machine had flooded the laundry room, the kitchen, the closet under the stairs, and a portion of the living room. Not only that, the downstairs bathtub was, quite literally, full of shit.

Why, yes, I did use every towel in the house, not to mention a lot of paper towels from my almost-depleted stock, to get stuff cleaned up, inasmuch as possible. There was nothing I could do about the shitty tub.

Eventually, the plumbers arrived, dug the hole to China, and commenced to working. Along the way, they discovered an underground electrical line, and — POW! — out goes my power. Fortunately, being kind of an emergency and all, Duke Energy guy popped right on over, and after a couple of hours, got my power restored. (Whew).

The plumbers finished the job right about 8:00 p.m. And it appears that water can once again depart my property unimpeded. In torrents, even. Things are mostly cleaned up, including the shitty bathtub, and I've even set up the coffee pot for tomorrow's early treat.

Ah. Another happy day in Pandemic Land.

So how was your day?