Its been a bad house week. On a really bad gardening day in my business we are fond of saying "there are days when a cubicle looks really good'. On a really bad day dealing with issues in the house I'm fond of dreaming of the day I can say "kiss my ass I bought a boat I'm going out to sea" (Thanks Lyle Lovett).
This story is all about basements and sewer pipes and why a big boat looks really good right now. I live in a very sweet old house that I got long-term, albeit temporary use of in the big D and most of it has seen improvements over the last 12 or so decades but the basement, well, I just don't think of improving it until its too late and I just MUST go down there. To get in the right space here you need to understand that my basement is a place I loathe to go. It is the "dark place" "the dirty place" "the place for that stuff I can't take to the thrift store" and it is full of all the systems of the house I can't fix - the boiler, the water heater, the oil tank, etc. Going down there gives me anxiety. Its dirty. Going down there gives me a sinus infection. Hell, thinking about going down there gives me a sinus infection. I try very, very hard NOT to go down there unless it is to feed my compost worms (they live down there in their bin in the winter) or bleed the boiler which I need to do on occasion because, well I don't really know why I need to bleed the boiler but I've been told I need to do it and, well, I'm in charge of the house.
On Wednesday as I sat in my down jacket and hat with my warm coffee on the sofa in front of the warm wood stove, I hear the upstairs toilet flush and the downstairs toilet, well, it blurped. In the recesses of my mind I pull up a vision from 12 years ago of a basement with water so I sprint to the "dark place". Water. I immediately bash my head on the cast iron heating pipe that hangs too low as you make your way to the bowels of the house and then break an unprotected and very important light bulb with my noggin. So before I can even figure out what is leaking I must find a potato (I just knew I was saving that moldy sweet potato for something) so that I can get the remains of the light bulb out of the light fixture - thanks to the "ex" for that tip. Light on the subject I realize that the leak is indeed from the area of the sewer pipe. Shit! Really? Shit, shit, shit.
Being a girl and hoping beyond hope that it was not going to have to be ME in the basement cleaning for the next few days and realizing I need to stop the leaking, somehow, if I can, as soon as I can, I call my boyfriend (BF) and my ex for knight in shining armor backup. However, and as usual, by the time they had it all figured out (neither on their way to help) I had it all figured out and had been to +Arjays for cleaning supplies, had instructed my kids they could not generate a drop of waste water in the house and had an appointment with +Rotor Rooter scheduled for the next day.
The sewer pipe from the street had clogged and had started to back up into the pipes in the house. Lucky for me, I have an old defunct and leaky cast iron sewer pipe that has been cut and capped but still is connected to the sewer pipe that leads to the street. So when the pipe clogged it backed into the leaky pipe and alerted me to a problem before it all backed up into the house. Sometimes it pays to have old leaky things (there is a boat dream analogy in there somewhere).
There are times when I think owning a house, even one that I really like, sucks, but this little incident has almost sent me over the edge. As you can imagine, I have been in loathed basement cleaning shit (literally) for the last two days and I am not done. As I contemplate my third (and hopefully, final) day of being in the "dark place" and take another shot of Flonase to fend off the sinus infection I take a few minutes to search Craigslist for the beautiful 30+' boat that me, my kids and my BF can move onto sooner rather then later . Ya see, problems in my house always make a boat look better. I know, I know the grass is always greener. But humor me. Its been a bad week. Also, understand that in this living on a boat dream I am living in a place where I do not have to drink my coffee in a down jacket. No Craigslist saviors this day:(
In my newbie sailor mind, when I weigh the pros and cons of living on a boat, not having a basement is a huge plus. First of all, you cannot own all that crap. You can't own it because you can't just "put it in the basement". The grass seeder that you inherited from your ex-in-laws when they moved to Florida 10 years ago and that you have never, ever once used? Ya, no. The rocking horse that you had as a child and your kids used exactly once? Ya, no. Beanie Babies, baskets, boxes, books, broken rocking chairs, the cast iron sink from the downstairs bathroom remodel? Ya, no. There is just no room for unnecessary stuff on a boat. It is downsizing on steroids.
In this weeks edition of my "I wanna live on a boat dream", what with the very dirty water in my basement, the closest thing to a basement you have on a boat is maybe the bilge. This is also kind of disgusting place. The bilge can get pretty gross but jeez, it just seems so much more manageable then an entire disgusting dirt floor basement with cast iron pipes jumping out at you and your old rocking horse staring at you from the back corner. So, on a boat I'd have less stuff and a smaller "basement" to deal with.
I KNOW I KNOW you boaters screaming at me over the internet - issues with a head on a boat are legendary. But, having read some stuff and assuming any issues are related to the workings of the head and are not structural to the boat, I feel pretty confident that I could (hopefully, fingers crossed) fix whatever goes wrong with the cost of supplies and without writing the $534 check to Roto Rooter. In my dream I get a certain satisfaction from at least trying to fix it myself. Actually, in my dream I fix it myself in under 2 hours for less then $50 and then go to the beach.
I also think about the fact that if I had lived on a boat, say, for the last 10 years, I would not have purchased that big ole Dell desktop or any of those printers, telephones, computer screens or televisions that I realize are still lurking in the space below. I don't think I'd have the 4 kids bikes (suitable for ages 3-12). I definitely would have chucked the bin of canned goods from Y2K a long time ago (you don't want to know). I am absolutely sure that the 5 pair of old skis and poles down there would be gone. I have to think that my throw away possessions would be significantly less. My entire footprint would be less- less crap, fewer throw away purchases, a smaller living space.
For now, though, my 16 year old does not seem keen on giving up his potential high school basketball career to take up the nautical life. So its house life for me for the next little while. I will take some satisfaction in the fact that "the dirty place" is now fairly clean. The thrift store has possession of a least two loads of stuff that I didn't even know I had and I hope someone else will find a use for those items. After trash day on Wednesday the bags of waste generated from my cellar will be a distant memory. I am taking solace in the report from Cliff - the Roto Rooter guy ("been doin' this for 18 years") who says my sewer pipe to the street is in good shape. Perhaps the next time the pipe decides to clog up I will be dealing with a head instead of a bathroom and some other good soul will be here to clean up the "dark place".
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