Poo-nami: A Brown Water Horror Story

WARNING: explicit language

Welcome to Monday. I hope your day is going just dandy. Mine? Oh, mine was a doozy. But who am I to complain?

[Disney princess eyelash batting]

It was a just fine.

No, really.

Okay, it started this morning around 9 am. Oh, I had seen it coming. The gurgles here, the slightly filled pipe there. I knew. I had seen it before. I had clogged the toilet. Sure, I do it at least once a week. The joys of having digestive and anxiety issues. And a penchant for cheese. But this time it was different. The toilet was filling. It had never done that before. So out came the plunger, as he had so many times before. My knight in shining armor, ready to suck that shit right out the poop exit.

But it didn’t. Had I finally done it? Had I finally broken a toilet?

This may be my future

Now, I’ve been known to clog them with the best, but nothing was moving. More plunging. More shit water splashing around the bathroom. On my clothes. On the walls. Everything I had just cleaned. It wasn’t budging. So off to the Google, and it told me, “Girl, you need an auger.”

Of course, I should snake the toilet. I should have an auger anyway….you know, because of my frequent ability to obstruct pipes with my excrement. Off to Lowe’s. Which is a lot of fun when you’re covered in poo water, half asleep, and the store is in the middle of a re-design so you can’t find anyone or anything. Not Lowe’s fault that I needed an auger on a Monday morning, on the last day of March. Searching for the elusive auger, on my way to plumbing—of course, I had to go by way of gardening. I got a new prayer plant for the RV. Grab some bird seed, then almost walk into someone who I swear was Carson Daly. Like, what the fuck? Why you in Georgia, Carson? Although, whomever this person was, he was working that gray fox style.

Drifting off to another aisle, because the last thing I want is possible Carson Daly to smell my shit water on me, I duck into lighting, and wheel over to plumbing. Or at least that’s what the sign said. I strolled though an aisle of door frames and locks, slightly confused. When did they fall into the plumbing category? Next aisle is nothing but pips—don’t need those, just yet? Finally find the sign for draining tools and it’s….faucets.

I had better luck in gardening.

Finally, under the highly appropriate Plumbing Accessories sign, I found my auger. I could leave. I could unclog my toilet. I could get on with my day.

Grading papers, a nap, a trip to Walmart and lunch at Taco Bell later (do you see why I have digestive issues?), I was sitting in my shit water stained sweatpants, a gentle rain coming down on me, and my RV value flush attached to my sewer line, waiting for the clog to come out. You see, it wasn’t an upper clog. No, it wasn’t with the toilet. It was with the black tank’s exit value. My feces and feces paper…I mean, toilet paper, had covered and glued the value shut.

I mean, I knew I was good, but damn….I should get an award.

I spent another hour trying to unstuck this value, filling the sewer pipe up with water, and then trying to create enough suction with my flush value to break it apart. Now it’s at this point I should press upon the importance of maintaining the health of your black tank, or if you are in a household situation, your sewer system. While placing the lovely tide pod rv black tank cleaners into your system might help, if you are an individual with potent digestive issues like myself, that simply is not enough. A regular rv flush should be conducted once a week, to ensure there is no build up on your black tank value, or else, what happened to me next will happen to you.

I sat on the wet ground, defeated, filthy, and smelly from my own sweat and poop. I was going to have to call a plumber in the morning. Thankfully I had a second bathroom, so it wouldn’t be an issue, but I was so certain the RV flush would work, since the auger didn’t, I was deeply disappointed. Breathing out a heavy sigh, I pulled myself up from the ground, admitting defeat. This clog had bested me. This tank had seen better days. How much was this going to cost me? My hand reached for the side of the RV, to help, and I move, a step away, to turn off the water, when I heard Hoover Dam break loose. Apparently, the slight pull of the siding had caused just enough of a break that Mount Ves-poop-us erupted and the entirety of what must have been two months of my Taco Bell and Cheese induced waste came flooding out of a plastic sewer tube that was not prepared for such force. The entire tube was filled. There was no room for air or water or ants (because I know that’s how you’re getting in, you little fuckers). It was an alvache of brown water. The tube vibrated and heaved under the strain. It rolled off the supports I had it on. The sewer attachment creaked under the pressure. Surely, it would hold. I checked all the attachment sites.

And then I heard it.

The Poo-naumi

A sound I never want to hear again

The sudden rush of water unencumbered. I peeked under the RV and gasped. It was a fountain. Brown water and toilet paper everywhere. Quickly, I jumped underneath—not thinking it would have been smart to shut off the black tank value. NO! I hurled myself at the torrent of poo water coming from the poop shoot, and tried to re-attach the tubes, like I was Ben Affleck in one of those 90s action hero movies. First, I felt my right shoe squish with water. Then my left. My arms were brown with sewage. My sweatpants…well, I might have to throw those away. I knelt in a three foot long pool of stagnant refuge, fighting with a tube that couldn’t handle the truth. And it was fragrant.

No, fragrant implies that it might have smelled nice. This was pungent. Potent. If Satan himself came down and caught a whiff, he would have immediately confessed his mistakes to God and become an angel again, just to get away from it. It was just that powerful.

I wept. But not tears of joy.

I battled the tube, but not before the rush of excrement actually pulled the pipe out of the ground and started puddling there. In my defense, I had already complained to the park manager about, because it’s just one pipe resting inside of another. It’s not properly fitted at all, and it slow drains, because I think grass has grown into it. But yeah, the pipes pulled apart. Secretly, I’m proud of this.

Eventually, I did cap the pipeline and save the world, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to die of dysentery now. I did try to cover the stench with cat litter box spray. I’m sure it helped. (secretly prays for flood to hide my crimes)

Yeah so, that was Monday. Good times….