"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
My Boog Pages
Friday, March 14
My Empire Of Dirt
How to spend those long, lazy Sunday mornings when it's fifty degrees and damp out? Do what I do -- crawl around on your belly in the mud for three hours.
My wife and I have been trying to sell our home for almost a year now, getting more and more desperate all the time. Finally, we got a good offer. Even better, we had them over the barrel for a change. They needed a house right now, and our house is the one they wanted, so we were able to get pretty much what we wanted.
Then came the inspections. Our house was built using pier-and-beam construction, so the floor sits about two feet above the ground. One of the inspectors told us that there was too much water pooling in the crawl space, and suggested we drain it. So my wife rented a pump and I made a special trip to town just to get filthy (and not in a good way).
I am not claustrophobic, but I have to admit I was nervous crawling under there. There were little islands of red mud surrounded by red, muddy water. Not too many bugs, and as far as I could tell, no snakes. They were probably inside where it was warm. I tried to crawl around on my elbows and knees, instead of belly-flopping in that mess, but I'm a tall guy with long legs, and my ass kept bumping into pipes, beams, my wife's groping hand, etc., so I finally bit the bullet and got wet.
First I had to dig a little pit so I could submerge the pump intake, and so the water would pool around it instead of getting too low to pump out. And if there's anything worse than lying on your belly in freezing, muddy water, it's lying on your belly in freezing, muddy water while trying to scoop out mud with a ladle. Every so often I'd get a good splash in the face just to keep me on my toes, and believe me, it's hard to stay on your toes when you're lying on your belly in freezing, muddy water. Yes, I was cold and it was nasty under there.
So I finally got the pit dug and my wife started the pump. Out went the water. But no new water drained into my little reservoir. So we stopped the pump and I did a little hydraulic engineering. I had to crawl all over the damn place cutting drainage ditches so the various little pools would all drain back to where the pump was. I thought I was never going to be done. I did finally get used to being cold and dirty, though.
Another hour and I was done. We fired up the pump again and water gushed down our street and into the sewer. Fifteen minutes and thirty gallons later we were done. A good thing, too, because my muscles had turned to stone and I was starting to shiver. I had to strip down to my soaking wet underwear in the back yard (fortunately, none of my neighbors were blinded by the sight) and I jumped into a nice hot shower.
And it worked! They bought the house. Now if my wife and kids can endure one month of homelessness, we'll move into our nice new home. Together again at last, twenty twenty twenty four hours a day.
