On the Third Day of Christmas…

…my true love gave to me, a poo-poo smelling, soaking wet pair of dirty jeans!

What a crazy, fun, frustrating, stinking, happy, tiring Monday we had!

Hubby’s attempt to clear the sewer clog with a 40 foot garden hose didn’t work.  He headed to the basement around 10:00 AM.  He was STILL down there at 1:00 PM, standing in puddles of nasty poo water and getting more and more frustrated with each passing minute.  I felt terrible.  I wanted to go down there to help him and there was nothing I could do.  A few times, out of udder defeat, I’d hear a loud crash of something that got thrown across the basement – which was probably in his way – and would have to come down to make sure he hadn’t fallen.  I could see he was getting unsteady on his feet and it worried me.  When I asked him to give up for the day he looked up at me and said, "There’s no way I’m spending my whole vacation down in this dump.  I’m not coming up until I get this thing unclogged!"  

Finally I couldn’t take it any more.  I called my dad to ask him if he knew if his friend would loan us his snake.  He didn’t hesitate to go ask his buddy.  About an hour later, dad pulled into the driveway and headed for the basement with a small, manual snake coil to loan a hand.  

THEN, my sister and her four children came over.  It was 3:00 PM by this time and with a house full of people, I felt horrible with worry about how much pressure it had to be putting on Hubby and my Dad to get this thing done.

A few minutes later, Mom pulled into the driveway to see if any progress was made.  The manual snake was useless.  Dad couldn’t get any further than Hubby did.  So what did Dad do?  He called up the stairs to Mom and said, "Hun, call Joey!"

Right away I wanted to protest.  Joey is a long time family friend of ours who worked as a plumber for many years.  I knew he could handle the problem and have everything running smoothly in no time, but, it was the day after Christmas!  I didn’t want to pull him away from his family just one day after Christmas.  Mom and Dad knew, too, that we couldn’t afford to pay him which meant they were going to.  They must have discussed it before even coming over.  

Mom saw the look on my face and just said, "Lisa..," and I sucked it up and nodded my head.  Dad, knowing the problem would be handled well, hugged us goodbye and went back home to go throw his shoes in the washing machine.  (At least I hope he did.)

Around 4:30 PM Joe and his partner Jason came in with a heavy duty snake and the whole atmosphere in the house changed from frustrated worry to happy excitement.  I greeted Joe with a big hug apologizing for bringing him out on a Holiday and he just shrugged it off like it was nothing.  Even Hubby visibly relaxed and was soon passing jokes and snarky remarks back and forth with Joe and Jason after we introduced them.  It was so good to hear my husband laugh.  They had the clog cleared out within 20 minutes.  

I asked Joe, then, "Do you want me to test it by flushing the poo-poo toilet from hell?"  He laughed and said, "Go for it!"  I wobbled up stairs, put my finger on the toilet handle and shouted, "Bombs away!!!"  Laughter filled the house.  

I stood there watching as the water swirled and swirled, but, because there were 14 people in the house that couldn’t possibly hold their water for five hours, the toilet was full of paper.  Immediately I realized my mistake as the water rose higher and higher.  The next thing everyone down stairs hears is, "NO!  No, no, no, no, noooooooo!"  The toilet plunger was in the basement – hubby having used it to try to plunge the drain.  I panicked.  I was frantically searching for something, ANYTHING, I could use as a plunger.  Finally I grabbed the toilet brush and just as I started plunging away at the water, Wesley walks in the bathroom and starts laughing hysterically.  I look over to him, still plunging frantically, and say, "Hey, it’s not funny!  I don’t want poo-poo on my shoes!  Go get the plunger!!"  He only laughed harder, running down stairs to announce to everyone that I was shopping up poo in the toilet with a stick to make it go down so it wouldn’t jump on my shoes.  

Again, the downstairs filled with the sound of laughter as I finally relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed it was going down the drain.  "Phew!!"  Disaster averted.  

Joe was happy to see me and my sister.  We hadn’t seen him since he was a 12 year old spunky kid snot.  His mother and my mother are best friends.  He’s right smack in the middle of seven kids.  We all kind of grew up together but had lost touch with one another over the years as we grew up and started our own families.  Funny thing is, his oldest brother became my cousin when he married my cousin Jan.  So, in many ways, we’er kind of like family.

When I came back down stairs, he was standing in the kitchen doorway and couldn’t resist the urge to say, "Well, your shoes are clean so I guess that means all is well."  

When it came time to pay him for his trouble, Mom was sitting at the table with her checkbook, ready to write out the amount.  Joe put his hand on Mom’s shoulder and said, "Don’t worry.  Just give Jason about $30. and we’ll leave it at that."

When he heard me gasp to keep from choking up, he walked over, gave me another big hug and said, "Merry Christmas, Lisa, it was sure nice to see you again after all these years."  They left then leaving me in stunned silence while the rest of the family waved goodbye.

Mom then gave us all hugs and kisses goodbye and left, too.  Hubby, weak and tired and hardly able to walk, slowly made his way up to the shower to wash off all the stink.  

The rest of the evening was filled with the usual noise of children having a blast playing, Hubby playing a few Wii games with the older girls and laughing his head off at their antics, and my sister and me chatting up a storm.  

We all ate dinner, Hubby went up to bed and my sister and I squeezed in as much visiting as we could before the dreaded hour of midnight when she’d have to pack up the kids and leave.

After they pulled out of the driveway, the house fell into silence.  Allie headed up for bed, Cathy got on the computer for a few minutes to say goodnight to her boyfriend, I sat down on the couch to read and unwind and Liz and Wesley played a game on the Wii to distract themselves from the sadness of having to say goodbye, once again.  

Until next time….