High school kids and Friday nights. Nearly always a bad combination. Friday nights mean parties, mischief, or both. I woke up at my usual late time on Saturday morning and staggered to the bedroom window to check on the weather.
“Oh no. Not again,” I groaned.
Every tree, shrub, vehicle, and overhead line in the yard was hanging with toilet paper. It was the fourth time this month.
From downstairs I heard my mom yell, “Get out there and pick up the toilet tissue. It looks like it’s going to rain.” Believe me, a TPed yard in the rain is impossible to clean, so begrudgingly I went outside to begin the long process of cleaning up the yard.
So, what is the motivation behind TPing a yard? Let me first say that it is not the act of an individual, but almost always performed by a group — a well-trained group of teenagers who don’t mind buying a case of toilet paper and within a matter of minutes have it fluttering from the trees and shrubbery in a yard. The motive is not hatred or maliciousness. Hatred is tagging a wall with spray paint. Maliciousness is driving a county road smashing mailboxes with a baseball bat. No, the motive is admiration. Kids TP houses of friends they like. I know, I did it many times myself and to add variation I would also quietly stack snowballs up against a friend’s front door at night and then ring the doorbell.
The blessing was that I had a lot of friends who genuinely cared about me. The curse was that they chose to show it by TPing our yard and not only was TP hanging from above, but they would also use TP to letter words of encouragement on the front lawn. It became a common site to see cars driving by the house slow down or stop so the driver could snap a photo.
And then we began to have septic problems in our old house. Dad did not see the need to ever have our tank pumped. All septic tanks need to be pumped at least every three years depending on the number of occupants in the house. If they are not pumped, the solid material in the tank rises to the level of the inlet pipe preventing anything from washing out of the house, so the sewage backs up all the way to the sinks, bathtubs, and toilets. The exit pipe on the septic tank also then pushes solids out into the drain field which plugs the drain field. Our system was completely plugged.
To start the fix, dad had the septic tank pumped. Then, starting in the basement, he took all the drainpipes in the house apart to flush the sewage mud from them. Lastly, we had to bring in a ditch digger to dig new drain field lines which ran the full length of our very long yard. The ditch was 2.5 feet wide, 3 feet deep, and ran 150 feet long. A layer of pea gravel was spread on the bottom of the ditch and corrugated black drainpipe was attached to the exit side of the septic tank and rolled out the full length of the ditch. That being done, we needed to wait a few days for another dump truck of pea gravel to arrive to cover the pipe completely. In the meantime, water and sewage from the house began filling the septic tank and flowing out into the drain field ditch until the sewage was 1.5 feet deep.
It was a moonless night, 11:00 pm and most of the house lights were off leaving the backyard black. A car pulled off the road a block away and five high school girls exited. They each had a six pack of toilet paper in their arms and high jinks on their minds. To avoid car lights, they entered through our backyard.
The plan was simple but efficient, they would rush the house and shrubs, unraveling thirty rolls of TP and then make their getaway. They streaked to the house in the darkness, no one speaking a word. One by one they disappeared. The TP trap had worked. All five girls had fallen into the drain field ditch and were now lying in sewage.
To tell you the truth, we would never have known except for the 11:30 pm knock on the front door which was opened to find five wet and smelly high school girls who wanted to borrow the garden hose and some old towels.
It has been years since I have seen a properly TPed yard. Quite possibly the fad has died out or the cost of a six-roll pack is just too expensive for a high schooler. I do know that mom was actually thankful each time we got TPed because after each cleanup I would bring a large garbage bag of tissue into the house and set it in the bathroom. We didn’t have to buy toilet paper for a long, long time.
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2 replies on “The TP Trap”
When I was young, steering wheels weren’t dished and people left their cars unlocked, kids would stick horns on and run like h3ll.
Ha! What a way to show someone you like them! I remember our house getting TPed once or twice. Blasted kids. I can’t imagine falling in a sewer trap though…disgusting!