The Flush of Wrath

8:51 AM Elizabeth Seckman 25 Comments

Imagine it...a quiet Saturday with a surprisingly small to-do list. I ate breakfast with my husband then sent him off to the farm. A for-real farm with cows and tractors, not the euphemistic farm where people send animals to "be free". Not that I have ever sent anyone or anything to that "farm"...

I promise, I haven't. 

But now I worry that by saying that, I'm sounding a bit too "she doth protest too much"...

Let's start over. Forget the farm. 

It was Saturday. The morning air was crisp, but the sun shone bright and the only thing on my to-do list was words. A whole day of them! I was going to write thousands and thousands of them! There was an elevated level of excitement in my nerdy heart. 

I got home and set up writer-shop in the basement, where I could do the laundry whilst I wrote that eventual best-seller. I put in the first load of clothes, got myself comfy in my subterranean work space when I noticed a stream of water coming across the basement floor. It had been raining, so I hoped it was something as simple as the sump pump needing a kick and a reboot. But my brain kept reminding me of the strange gurgle in the pipes when the toilet flushed. I kept those fingers crossed and inspected the problem. The basement walls were dry. The water came from the sewer drain. 

Nothing like soapy, poopy water to kill the joy of a free afternoon. I called my husband home from the farm (I told you I hadn't killed him!), pulled on my gumboots, and started the mop and clean up. Long story short...two days of digging, cussing, praying, and water blasting got us back to free-flowing normalcy.

I always try to find the upside of everything, some silver lining or glimmer of understanding, but so far, all I've come up with is...

When life gives you poop, don't make a milkshake. Just clean the sh*t up and go on. 

Ironically, my book of choice for this week was Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. By chapter three, I was thanking God for my twenty-first century problems. I'm sure the Joads would've loved to trade me places. My wet basement for being run off their homestead during the Great Depression of the 1930's. 

I guess there was a silver lining after all.