Ah, the septic tank is full and overflowing once again…
We can go about three and a half weeks between pumpouts, so I guess we’re lucky that this isn’t happening on Christmas Eve. It’s probably incomprehensible to most Americans that we’re living in a home without a working septic system, but then most of you have never visited Taos, NM: there are a number of older homes here where the single-chamber septic tanks have clogged and need to be emptied on a monthly basis. Anyway, in a few hours Mr. Steve Vigil will be here with his truck, and that will be that. Another month, another $130 that we take out of the rent to pay for it.
(Imagine how much fun this will be with two feet of snow in the driveway and the truck can’t reach the tank!)
The reason we’re in this situation is that this house and the adobe next door are both on the same system. Our late landlord owned both of them. When he died, he split the estate, so there are two heirs, each of whom owns one of the buildings. For one reason or another, they both hired lawyers, and I’m in the middle. Life goes on then, until I flush the toilet and nothing goes down, and then I call Mr. Vigil.
Needless to say, my wife and I are going to move ASAP, because nothing is ever going to change at our current address. It’s a personal and also a very Taos thing, the way nothing works or ever gets fixed, mostly a cultural legacy of the extreme poverty that’s traditionally been the case here. You have to leave all your so-called normal expectations behind if you relocate to el Norte, something the Chamber of Commerce will never tell you. I don’t really mind that things don’t work — there’s a lot of anarchistic freedom as a result. Whatever. People come here, build fancy houses, then freak out and go back to California or Ohio, so there are PLENTY of homes with perfectly fine septic systems available for rent, and come January, we’re going to find one, by God.
It’s been very fine living here on this scenic hillside, but the slits my lover’s eyes turn into when I tell her she can’t flush today would freeze the balls right off a bull.
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Oh god, I remember years of living with a septic tank in clay soil and my unwanted but intimate aquaintance with raw sewage. Extreme condolences. The days the city brought the sewer in was one of the best of my life.