And now for the final installment…
I quickly called the second cleaning service back to let them know we finally got the lid off and they could come anytime. Uh-huh. Given it was now late afternoon, we’d have to wait until the next morning, sometime before noon.
It would only cost us another fifty dollars…because the next morning happened to fall on a Saturda,y and weekend rates would go into effect then. Yippee.
The woman instructed us to put the lid most of the way back on. Not only would it prevent someone from accidentally falling in during the night (now there’s a peachy thought!), but it might also enable us to successfully flush the toilet until their guy arrived.
Didn‘t help even a little bit, but at least no one fell in.
You can imagine that we were extremely relieved when the guy from the septic company arrived the next day, barely before noon. I knew right off that the young man wasn’t getting paid enough. It was right there to see, in the black stuff all over his clothes and skin.
Personally, I’d have liked to have driven somewhere far, far away, but bright girl that I am, I thought I’d play the nice, interested homeowner and stand on the porch while the tank was being sucked clean. Or as clean as a septic tank can get, which isn’t much at all.
Turns out the porch wasn’t the best place to be.
Actually, I’m not sure that Ohio would have been far enough away once he stuck the hose down in the hole and turned the suction switch on.
I can’t even begin to describe the stink that assaulted my nose.
And this guy was bent directly over the hole, without benefit of a gas mask, or oxygen tank, or anything else to filter the noxious odor that probably offended people for miles.
Still trying to fulfill my duties as the property owner, I tried to tough it out, slapping my hand over my nose and mouth. That might have been effective had I been holding a washcloth doused in Lysol. As it was, I could have inhaled my hand all the way up to my wrist and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.
Apparently the guy must have noticed, because I saw him grinning from ear-to-ear. Most likely because I looked like an idiot.
I then tried pulling the neck of my tee shirt up, thinking that my perfume might mask the odor a little but, wonder of wonders, that didn’t help either. That’s when I gave up trying to be a good homeowner and quickly fled into the house.
I wasn’t getting paid to breathe that kind of pollution. In fact, I was paying big bucks so that he could have that privilege!
Anyway…
The job is finally finished, lid back on the tank (oh thank God!), and the guy, with his nasty, black stained hands, says, “Hang on, I’ll get your receipt.”
What?!!!
You’re going to touch my receipt with those hands…and you seriously think I’m going to take it?
But I did, briefly, by the tiniest little bit of the corner. For a second I thought I might take it to town and have it laminated so I could put it in my file box. Then I realized it would be a pretty rotten thing to do to anyone who used the machine after me. Eventually I decided the canceled check would be all the proof I’d need…and pitched the receipt in the trash.
And then it was time to flush the toilet and sanitize the bathtub. Oh yay. Can’t tell you how thrilled I was to tackle that job…
