Problem Solving, Or The Day My Septic Tank Raneth Over (article) by Lloydene F Hill on AuthorsDen

Not too long after I took a problem solving class, I had the opportunity to test what I had learned in a very creative and unusual way. We had a old, old septic system. As a matter of fact it wasn't even on the county records. It consisted of a semi-failed drain field and a 500 gallon corrugated metal culvert with a metal bottom. It was never ever meant to handle the effluent of seven people and the seepage of torrential rains. This is my story. It was right after we’d had a week of torrential rains, I was awakened one morning, at 4:30 a.m., by a loud round of obscenities emanating from inside the bathroom. Still more asleep than awake, I got up and wandered into the bathroom to see my husband, Tom, standing there mopping up an overflowing toilet. I peered in briefly, through sleep encrusted eyes, trying to make sense out of what I was seeing, then without much acknowledgment I turned and went back to bed, believing that he had, or would, fix the problem. In a few hours, when I got up to get ready for the day, my husband said to me in a very sarcastic tone, “I hope that you do not intend to go in and use the facilities, because if you do, you’re SOL!” When I inquired why, he sneered and said, “What do you think all that was about this morning; did you think that I was just mopping the floor?; And don’t even think about taking a shower because the toilet’s backing up into the bathtub!” "Great!" I said to myself, how could this have happened. No toilet, no shower, and seven people in the house. How’s this going to work? I started to get frustrated, but then I remembered one of the twenty hints we received in a problem-solving class I took, at Marylhurst, “keep a positive attitude.” I began to think, that it could be worse, I, or someone else in the house, could have extreme stomach distress, or have been sprayed by a skunk. My husband griped the whole time he was getting ready for work about how he had to scrub the refuse out of the tub and then take a shower while standing in ankle deep water. Gee, tough luck I thought, lucky for me this happened on a weekend so I didn’t have to worry about the work ordeal. I began to think about how I was going to solve the problem of taking a shower. Then it hit me, it had stopped raining, so I felt sure that the water level in the tank surely had the change to drain down a bit by now, so I decided to take a leap of supreme faith and chance taking a shower. I stepped, naked, into the tub, desperately hoping that I wasn't wrong, the last thing that I wanted to be doing was standing ankle deep in "cess water." Slowly, cautiously, I turned the spigots on, with the same ginger and care that a bomb expert must use when trying to defuse a bomb. I squinted my eyes, like that was going to save me, and stepped as far to the back of the tub as I could get, that way if the effluent flowed, I could escape out the back before it reached my toes. Waiting, watching, and bearly breathing, it the five or so seconds that it took for the water to start draining seemed like an eternity, but it was draining. I had been right, septic tank’s water level had indeed dropped low enough to take a quick shower. So I took a quick shower. There one problem solved, mine, but several others to follow. The kids all needed showers, and none of them would want to wait until the septic tank’s water level dropped. Then, like a hammer up side the head, it hit me. It was so clear, so pure, so obvious. The health club. My oldest stepson had a membership, so I had him go up and get a family guest pass, and then took the kids to the club to get there showers. The bathroom gig was another matter. I had to resort to the old five people one flush routine for the first part of Saturdaybut then, as it began to dry out, I was able to design a flushing chart so we could actually get more flushes out of an extremely clogged up system. My chart basically spaced certain bodily functions out during the day. If you were male and had to sit down to utilize the facilities, then you either had to stick to the chart or find an alternate facility. Period no negotiations. Since most of the kids that we have in the house are male, that meant that there was a lot of alternate facility use. But it solved the problem. Come Monday morning, I was able to get in touch with the septic tank guy, and get the thing pumped out. It was sure amusing, while it lasted, watching all those kids trying to jockey for position as to who would get to use the house facilities, or seek relief elsewhere. Admittedly, this was not the most difficult problem that I have had to face in my life, but it was the most amusing. I know that the skills and hints that I learned from that class pulled me through that weekend. I still find it amazing that while everyone around me was griping about the situation, nobody thought to try and think of a way out of it. I had five teenagers in that house, and not one of them could, or would, offer up any kind of solution, except, “Fix It!”. My husband was more interested in discussing how it affected his ability to get ready for work than he was at trying to offer up any solutions for getting through the weekend. Keeping a positive attitude and setting my mind up for success helped me to arrive at a creative solution to a putrid problem.

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