It has been non-stop for me lately. I’ve been working almost 38 hours a week at all kind of weird hours at my ‘part time’ job. I complain now, but at least money is coming in. But I have to tell you, this is the first Christmas in almost 4 years that I’ve had to work. While I’ve been in retail all of my life, this is the first year in almost 12 years that I have worked in a store that is truly in the ‘Christmas season’. What does that mean? It means that for all the years I worked at Lowe’s, the summer was our busy time of year and the winter was dead for us — the total opposite of regular retail. While I’m not a salesperson which is a very good thing, that doesn’t mean that my job is stress free and that I do t get to stay off of the sales floor. I do not miss the crushing crowds and angry/ignorant people that come out to shop around this time of year. But that’s enough about that.
Working during the Christmas season isn’t the only headache I’ve had to deal with this season. Our sewer has been in a constant battle with us. Back on November 12th, our line clogged up solid. We had to call Roto-Router out and it took the guy almost 3 hours to clear our line. Every was fine until last week. Once again, our line clogged up solid. A quick funny story about this clog…
I was at the computer and Jess was taking a shower. She peaked her head out of the bathroom and said that the toilet gurgled when she was taking a shower. This is exactly what happened last time the line clogged so I grabbed a flashlight and headed downstairs. I went to the clean out and saw some water running out of it. It wasn’t a lot, and I was confused. I then looked at the pipe coming out of the clean out that our washing machine drains into. There was water and toilet paper coming out of the top where the washing machine hose goes in. I knew the line was so clogged that it was backing up into the pipe, and that I needed to relieve the pressure. I slowly start lifting the pipe out of the clean out and it started spraying everywhere. Not wanting to get everything soaked in sewer water, I quickly pulled the pipe straight out of the hole. A 3ft geyser of water came out of the clean out, held in mid-air for a moment, and then came splashing down to the ground soaking me in sewer water. Yuck. Needless to say I could not take a shower so I had to walk over to my sister’s house, in my Batman bathrobe, to take a shower. Yay. So after that adventure the sewer authority showed up the next day along with Roto-Router again and cleaned everything out.
Then comes Christmas morning. I had blown a fuse because I had stupidly tried to use the toaster while the fireplace was on. When I went into the basement, I heard what sounded like a garden hose running. I turned the power back on and grabbed a flashlight. For once, out line was not clogged, but someone else’s was, since all of this sewer was was freely flowing into our basement. So we called the sewer authority on Christmas morning and surprisingly they come out pretty quickly to the house. They finally identified the problem. There is a section of sewer pipe up on the main road that is infested with tree roots. That had clogged up and was sending water into our basement since we are the first house in this sewer run. This was apparently the cause of our backup last week as well. They assured me they should be replacing this section of pipe very soon. Hopefully they will and we can start putting this whole mess behind us.
