For dark times

[Warning: The following contains scatological humor. Viewer discretion advised.]

Though I have twinges of OCD, I’m no germaphobe. I’ve always been happily on the grubby side. Like a tidy slob, my clothes or home may look neat, but they are seldom clean. Never prissy about biological odors, I’m one of those who went to the Volunteer Park Conservatory to smell their corpse flower in full bloom. Admittedly I had an adjustment when moving to the woods, but that was due to all the mud, leaves, & animal muck I was tracking everywhere & felt I should clean. Not that I did. A better person would’ve. I’m fine with being just OK.

On this tiny farm in the forest, where my sister & brother-in-law generously took me in, the septic system failed one morning. The kind of failure where yuck rises from the drains horror-movie style, but instead of blood it’s excrement soup. My BIL called a company to come pump the tank, which has 4 manhole-size lids. These lids were lost under foliage & my sister had to excavate them. As the truck lumbers up our twisty driveway a city block long, I’m there to open the gate. All of us are eager to use the plumbing soon.

The septic tech guy finally parks, gets out & greets us. Then he grabs a pry bar from the truck & heads to the first cover. Sis & I stand around for… what? moral support? curiosity? I don’t really know why we’re standing here. The guy probably wonders too. I don’t imagine most customers want to watch their septic tanks being pumped. Even Rory, the duck, is here. We exchange a look that says ‘fascinating!’ before training our attention back on the action. I ready for vintage latrine cologne, with notes of busy campground during a hot summer. A concentrated cooked-sewage scent.

He pops the lid & a malevolent belch issues an edict from Gehenna. I violently gag & run for the opposite end of the property. When I reach the fence, there’s nowhere left to go. The lethal stench was no run-of-the-mill grilled privy. It was an outhouse that ate a horde of zombies then nuclear-farted a punch in the face. I wept as if pepper-sprayed. Oh! My! Fucking! [heave] God! So this is how my grubby cool slips. Bested by a stink.

The retching subsides & I find a new resolve. I will NOT let the stink win! I go in the house & put scented lotion up my nose for lack of anything else to hand. I take some deep breaths in the fetid-broth bathroom (now less noxious than the outdoors), go back out & inch my way around the house. My sister is still standing there! Albeit with a frozen grimace. I wonder if she’s congested. The guy probably uses that coroner trick with Vick’s VapoRub under his nose. Or he’d worked the job so long it burned out his olfactory receptors.

He said “Well, that’s not good,” to which I thought ‘no shit!’ then, rather ‘yes, shit.’ Shit’s what was there. Then he said “You see that scum on top?” My sister & I leaned forward & looked. He continues “That scum indicates bacteria die-off.” Well, yeah. I was traumatized by a mere whiff. If I lived in that smell I’d gag to death. He went on, “Septic tanks need bacteria to break down the waste.” Our bacteria wasn’t up to snuff. He explained that can happen if someone in the house has been taking antibiotics. Then he got out the giant hose & began to pump the tank. It was loud & now less interesting, so I went in the house. My lotion was wearing off.

I came back out when the pump stopped & the covers were secured. We watched the guy hose down the giant hose with our garden one. I thought ‘But now that dead poop-water is on our grass!’ He put the giant hose back on the truck. He & sis chatted while payment was made, & I stood by our compost heap (it smelled better than the yard). I turned my head at a slight movement in my peripheral, then said “Oh, hello!”

“Fancy meeting you here,” I continued with what sounded like lame pick-up lines, “Aren’t you beautiful!” Frankly, that’s how I respond in all my encounters with wildlife. I have to get some better material. My sister stopped speaking to the guy, said “Who are you talking to?” I looked over & they were both staring at me like I’d lost my mind. That’s fair, I thought. From their vantage point I was talking to the tree that blocked their view. Or a hallucination. I answered out the side of my mouth like a bad ventriloquist “The owl– right there,” & cocked my head at it.

I was amazed it didn’t fly off when they moved to see. Further amazed when the truck rumbled away & it stayed put. Got my phone & it mugged for the camera. It stayed while I ate. Still there after I finished reading a book. After 3+ hours, it was gone. I wondered if it ever got the rat that frequents the compost. & if owls have no sense of smell.