I’d received a text at home Monday evening saying that the urinals in the men’s room appeared to be backing up. ‘Jinene thinks it could be the septic tanks are full’, it suggested.
Typically, with to 1,000 gallon tanks, I can go an entire year between emptying’s. I was pretty sure it was May or June when it had last been done and so when I arrived and looked up the invoice to confirm, found it had been May. Still…I needed to check.
There is a large, round cement slab covering each of the tanks. They probably weigh around fifty pounds and aren’t too difficult to move. Sealing the actual tank though is another, heavier one. It runs a hundred pounds, is cone-tapered to fit snuggly into the opening to the tank, and is down two feet from ground level. Kneeling on the ground in soggy grass, I reached in and tried to pull it up. It was wedged and not budging. I retrieved my flat bar, loosened it, and tried again. It gave slowly and began to rise, but I could only pull with one hand from a squatting position and was sorely tested to get it above the hole to swing out of the way. Once that was done, I could see into the pit with my head lamp as it was still dark.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to the shit three feet below me. An 8” drain pipe brought all refuse from the toilets and sinks of the farm to this point. Well…it tried to, at least. The pipe was plugged with toilet paper and, well, other stuff, and wasn’t emptying into the tank, which was full to the bottom of the pipe. In my cleverness, I returned to the shop, grabbed a hoe, and returned to free the drain pipe of its clog. With lamp fixed on the problem, I probed and poked at the clog and it began to loosen. Then, quite unexpectedly and with over 200 feet of water pressure built up behind it, the plug broke loose and rushed into the tank. As it hit the dividing wall in the tank, it sent a spray of debris upward and in the direction of my face. In those fleeting seconds, I envisioned my own death, drowned in a septic tank of unknown depth for I was sure I would fall in after being doused, I moved with the speed and agility of LBJ attacking the hoop for a dunk. It missed me, thankfully, and I am here now to tell you of this near life-altering event.
When Ed from Geauga Septic arrived later that morning to pump out the tanks, he told me how he’s seen those spouts reach six feet high. “You were lucky it missed you,” he said with some admiration.
“Someone else would have been calling you if it hadn’t. I’d be in therapy right now if it had,” I responded.
As I drove home praying the rains would hold off, I saw that the temperature registering on my car dashboard was 68 degrees. In February. I got home just as the sun was peeking through overcast skies and my hopes were buoyed. I changed quickly, patted Dakota and told her I came first, and headed out on my bike.
I climbed out of the valley on SR 303 once again and rode straight to the bike/hike trail at the top of the hill. Once there, thirty minutes after leaving the house, I rode north for thirty more minutes. There were many hikers, runners and other cyclists on the path, which dismayed me, but I made the best of it. At my turn-around, I spoke to another cyclist about country roads I could ride in the area. He steered me towards Hinckley, a rural community west about ten miles, but was perplexed that I didn’t want to ride these paths or the towpath.
“Too many people walking dogs, jogging and paying more attention to their cell phones than approaching cyclists. I don’t want one of them to step in front of me as I’m riding and send us both to the pavement,” I said.
I headed home lathered in sweat. It was a very good sensation for a February day and I had to note that my legs and lungs were getting stronger already from the rides I’d been doing. I’m climbing more easily and with power from the saddle. Muscle memory from fifty years of riding, I suppose.
Bike duration: Two hours.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1,500.
Bonus: 24,000 steps.
No comments:
Post a Comment