Potty Mouth

It’s been a long time since anyone has called me a potty mouth; even so when my wife hears the words, she still gets the giggles.

If any of you have worked in the industry world like I have most of my life, terms like “Lock, Tag, Try” and “Three Way Communication” are slogans that the safety departments drill into us to keep employees from getting hurt.

“Lock, Tag, Try” of course means to lock out a piece of machinery and tag it with an explanation of why it is locked out. Then you try to start the piece of machinery to verify it is indeed dead.

“Three-way communication” means that someone gives you an instruction and you repeat it back. Then, the original person confirms that yes, that is indeed is what he meant or in my case, I get a blank look and the requestor starts all over again.

Here is a typical and personal example:

Cheryl says: “Could you put this load of whites in the washing machine so they won’t get ruined this time?”

I say: “Sure, can I throw in my blue jeans? I don’t have anything clean.”

Cheryl, looking blankly at me says: “What part of so they won’t get ruined this time didn’t you understand, idiot?”

So, I know better, and yet sometimes I have been known to cut corners.

I’m sure that many of you remember about ten years ago that the Whatcom County Health department went on a witch hunt to find which septic tanks in the Drayton Harbor drainage were fouling the bay. Every home in the county had to get inspected for failing septic tanks and drain fields. The day the inspector showed up at my house, I was at work, there was a screaming winter Northeaster, the ground was frozen solid, and he claimed the dye he dumped into my tank surfaced in my drain field. I found this extremely odd since where he said my drain field was and where it actually is was not even close to each other. And yet he failed it. Next I got a lovely notice from the Health Department that I had 30 days to repair the condemned system.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that bad. I had to put in riser lids and inlet and exit baffles; something I could do myself.

The first thing I did was to schedule to have the tank pumped. After it was pumped, I washed down the walls. Then, since the tank is divided into two sections, I put on my rain pants and coat, rubber gloves, rubber boots, and my fluorescent orange hard hat, and I shimmied through the small hole in the lid of the exit side of the septic tank and began to put the exit baffle together.

It’s nice having Cheryl at work during the day so I don’t have to explain why I am doing something that may appear to be foolish to the untrained eye.

When the exit baffle had been secured, it was time to shimmy into the inlet side of the tank.

Lock, Tag, Try — Oh sure, I could have shut off all the water sources in the house.

The inlet side of the septic tank was amazingly difficult to get into. With all the protective clothing on, I was too big for the hole which was in the lid. Eventually I found that if I put my legs and one arm in while holding the other arm over my head, I could wiggle my chest down until I was completely in the tank.

Now that I think about it, a septic tank is also a confined space. I didn’t use a monitor to pre-sniff the tank before I entered, but then I didn’t need a monitor to tell me, “This stinks”.

Crouching in the inlet side of the septic tank under the lid, flashlight in my mouth, baffle pipes in my left hand, screwdriver and hose clamps in my right hand, I heard a car door slam.

“Who could that be?”

I heard the garage door close. I crawled over so I could look out of the hole in the lid just enough to see in the kitchen window. It was Cheryl. She walked over and turned on the TV so loud that I could hear it clearly from under the lid. “What’s she doing home so early?” I went back to attempting the baffle hookup.

The sound I heard next sent chills down my spine and a feeling of terror flooded my whole being. It can only be compared to illegally walking inside the Fairhaven train tunnel on the tracks and at the half way point hearing a train whistle and seeing a head light. It was the sound of water rumbling down the 3” pipe toward the septic tank. My side of the septic tank. Lots of water. A whole toilet’s worth of water.

“Oh (Potty Mouth)!” I yelled. But there was nothing to be done to save the situation. No way to remove myself with any speed out the too tiny hole in the lid and within a matter of a few mere seconds, I got the first volley of three gallons of water all over me.

At that point, I made a mental note to check out the low water volume toilets at Lowes.

Next, and always one to have good hygiene, Cheryl washed her hands for what seemed like 45 seconds. This is nothing like any of the waterfalls I have been in while visiting Hawaii.

“Potty mouth, potty mouth, potty mouth!” I am now trying to remember how I got in through the hole in the septic lid so I can egress my way back out. Meanwhile, Cheryl went into the kitchen and ran cold water in the sink so she could make a large glass of water.

Finally, with glass in hand, she walked across the kitchen to survey the back yard only to fix her eyes on an arm sticking up in the air and a head wearing an orange hard hat protruding through the hole in the septic lid. The hard hat, by the way, had a string of toilet paper lying over its top which hung down to drape over my left ear. Our eyes met. She assuming I was waving with my one arm over my head, waved back. She then retreated to watch her favorite TV show.

“Potty mouthin’ septic tank,” I muttered and went back to finish attaching the inlet baffle.

Later, which included the ten minutes to get out of the septic tank, I shed all my raingear and my clothes on the deck and entered the house through the back door only to find Cheryl still watching TV.

“Why are you standing in your underwear and why do you stink?” she asked.

“Let me explain to you about Lock, Tag, Try,” I said, and tried to explain to her the events while being loving and ignoring her constant giggling.

“Well you should have left a Three Way Communication note on the floor,” she said. “Go upstairs and take a shower and make sure you wash your face. You have kind of a potty mouth.”

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