Well, maybe it's over. The electricians showed up today to look at the power supply to the septic pump. After about an hour they decided that the electric line from the house might have gotten cut through when Mr. Troutbend was digging in the yard.

The thing is, he's not a total idiot about these things, and I think he'd know a live power line when he saw it. Plus, he doesn't have a big ego so would not hesitate to admit he messed up.

But, looking at the circumstantial evidence, the septic was working fine (as far as we knew) until about a month ago when we decided it needed to be pumped out and Mr. Troutbend went digging around in the yard. By the time the pumping guy got here about a week later and noticed something wrong, that would account for it - the pump had been out of commission that long.

Like Ricky Ricardo used to say: there's some 'splaining to do.