You know, living on top of a big hill the way that I do, I never worried too much about what happened to my septic waste. The old adage, “Shit runs downhill” always put my mind at ease. And then one day the stuff started bubbling up in my back yard, like one of those chocolate fondue fountains you see at wedding receptions, sending an interesting aroma wafting along the summer breezes and through the open windows of my house.

Time to call the honey wagon.

When the fellow showed up to pump out my tank, I walked with him out to Crap Creek. He consulted the plot map of my property, looked around and found the cover to the septic tank.

I was with him when he opened it.

…

At this point, let me break for the engaging narrative here for a moment, and make an observation:

it's amazing what humans can get used to. I mean, this guy and I were standing side by side one moment carrying on a conversation. Then he opened the lid, and suddenly I was flat on my back gasping for breath and trying not to yark up my breakfast while he was bending over the hole continuing to carry on our conversation, completely oblivious to the fact that the air around him had suddenly turned a thick and sticky purple.

…

As the man began a thorough inspection of the tank, I went tearing across the back yard, my hand clamped firmly over my mouth, looking for a place to vomit where the dogs wouldn't find it and eat it and make me puke all over again.

When I was done with my business and Mr. Honey Wagon Guy was done with his, he came to me with his assessment of the situation. Pumping the tank wasn't going to be enough. I needed a new septic system because the old one was constructed some time around the reign of Julius Caesar.

Okay, I thought, a new septic system? How bad can that be?

HOW BAD? Try three designs presented to the Town Crap Engineer, four perc tests to see how fast shit will absorb into the earth beneath my house, four truckloads of dirt for the new leaching field, and a total bill of just over . . . $12,000.00!

Can you believe it? $12,000.00 just for the privilege of flushing a toilet!

I looked at the contractor doing the construction work and said, “$12,000.00 for a new septic tank, four truckloads of dirt, and your excavation work?”

He nodded and said, “Yup! But it's really really good dirt!”

...

He was serious.

I wanted to freaking hit him.

…

The Town Crap Engineer came out to the house four times to do the perc tests. He's also the same guy who declined two leaching field designs before finally accepting the third one that was drawn up by my contractor. (Can you believe that you need and contractor's and an engineer's approval before you can take a freaking dump? Amazing, huh?)

The engineer showed up with his tape measure, measuring the distance from the proposed site of the septic tank to our well, from the leaching field to the road and from the leaching field to our property line.

He rejected the first design because it was too close to our property line, and the stuff might leach over into our neighbor's land. (Actually, it might leach under our neighbor's land, if you want to be more accurate.)

He rejected the second design because it was too close to the road, and it might leach under the road and into the property across the street.

ME: What difference does it make how close it is to the road?

C.E. (Crap Engineer): We don't want sewage going under the road and running underground to the property across the street.

ME: Why? It's thirty acres of woods over there.

C.E.: Houses might go up there some day.

ME: It's power company property. They're never going to sell.

C.E. They might.

ME. They won't

C.E. They might.

ME. They won't.

C.E. Might!

ME: Won't!

C.E.: MIGHT!

ME: Fuck it.

So, after two months of planning and digging and scraping and tearing up my driveway, (the approved plan called for the leaching field to be on the other side of my driveway.), and ripping the hell out of my southern pasture (the approved plan called for the leaching field to be located right there in my southern pasture!), the deed was done, and I could safely take a crap again in my house without endangering my neighbors or the wild forest animals who live across the street.

$12,000.00 and two weeks of work!

Two things I learned from the whole experience:

1. 
   

   The shit industry really employs a lot of people!
   



2. 
   

   There's REALLY GOOD MONEY in crap!
   

I walked out into my southern pasture the other afternoon and stood upon the mound of really, really good dirt that houses my new leaching field.

As I looked around the pasture, I saw several monuments of good eating that my horses deposit.

I have three horses and one pony. Each horse craps a pile each day that is bigger than a German shepherd...and yet, their stuff gets to stay above ground! Mine has to buried in a vast gold mine called a leaching field, as if it were ultra-hot plutonium.

I don't get it.