When I left you on Monday we were on our way out to pick up Daphne from school and mail off her broken iPad at the local FedEx. And the weather was so nice that we finally got to do one of her favorite things…roll the window down in the car.

And in case you’re wondering what that kind of joy looks like…

Warm weather.
Windows down.
Mom and Dad singing “Humpty Dumpty” on repeat.

Empirical photographic evidence would suggest that life doesn’t get better than this.

In other news, I learned a valuable lesson about septic tanks this week.

Apparently they require pumping out with some level of regularity, even if they are newly installed less than 4 years ago.

Jen mentioned something on Tuesday night about the toilet making strange bubbling noises while she was bathing Daphne, and I went in to find that water had also backed up into the bathtub and left little shredded wheat bits all over the place.

So I shut the water off to the toilet (which apparently jostled it enough to cause a leak in the spigot valve on its pipe, but that’s another story) and then spent some couch-time thinking/researching the culprit.

ChatGPT (General Plumbing Technician) assured me that it was either a backed up main sewage line to the septic, or that the septic itself was full.

And so I called an emergency request to the local poopsmith, and they came out that very afternoon. (And if you’re in the NEK, I highly recommend these folks. They moved their schedule around and found time to take care of us within 4 hours of me calling them.)

In the interim, however, we obviously could not use the toilet. Which is all fun and games until your coffee kicks in at around 9am.

And thus began a morning scatalogical odyssey.

First, I convinced myself that I could just Grizzly Adams this thing and head out into the trees for a morning constitutional. But once I got there I considered the contortional logistics of such an endeavor. I’d have to remove my boots and pants, and it was about 31° out…

And so I thought better of the attempt and pondered a plan B whilst doing the tailbone tuck speed-shuffle back to the house.

On the way, it occurred to me that I could just utilize a trash bag for the endeavor.

And so I gasketed the toilet bowl, did my thing, bagged the whole business and took it out to the trash. As such, I have now learned my lesson and have already scheduled our next septic pump out for 2027.

He can be taught.

j.s.