I blame Maggie

So there I was, contemplating my life of leisure with all three kids in school ALL day. (Sorry but I keep having to remind myself that it's really happening.)

Anyway, Maggie May, I'm sure you meant well, but I think you jinxed it!!!!

Sunday evening, a gentle rain started about which I was well chuffed since I hate watering the plants. It continued throughout dinner, seeming to get a little heavier. "Good", I thought, "the dirt/soil needs a bit of a soak".

Later the Queenager and I were lounging around, watching the Emmy's, her bony feet digging into my not-so-bony lap.

"Phew", I exclaimed, "is that your feet?" (employing doting, motherly tone.) Apparently not, as she'd just emerged from another spa-like showering session, plucked, creamed and deodorized.

And then I put two and two together! Heavy rain, bad smell .... can only mean one thing.

"Aarrgghh quick, pull the rug up", I yelled, catapulting Queenager off the sofa and leaping into action. Yes folks, the stupid, ancient, cracked city sewer pipes had once again backed up into the ground somewhere and forthwith into my basement family room. Why Americans in the mid-west have such a love affair with basements I will never know. They are the albatross of domestic life and bleed you dry both financially and emotionally. And the smell is like nothing else, even when you've had three babies.

Mr. Minimal was sent to find all the old towels, and predictably, came down with a very plump matching set reserved for guests. "Aarrgghh" I screamed again, "this is sewage. That would be wee and poo. We are NOT using those towels" (motherly tone slipping at this point.) He eventually located a handful of old, scraggy towels I keep specifically for wee and poo occasions. Ha. Talk about not making a dent. Those towels were wringing wet in less than twenty seconds, requiring me to wring them about (yes people) into a bucket and put them on the floor again.

I hope no-one's eating at the moment.

I then remembered a shop vac (huge barrel with vacuum hose attached) so the Ball & Chain was dispatched to the garage while I continued to wring shitty water out of the towels. (Sorry but I want sympathy.) Unbelievably, gentle readers, we almost filled a 25 gallon shop vac with the manky water that seemed to be gushing into my basement. Thank god it stopped raining after about two hours. I'm not very good after a night of vacuuming up sewage.

Next morning there was a small puddle, but we'd moved all the furniture, removed the rug and have a tiled floor. The nice, but expensive, men from the plumbing and sewage company came out mid-morning and "rodded" the main sewer pipe - to find that it was clogged with tree roots, from the stupid, ugly tree right outside my house. Didn't people realise in the 1880s that if you plant trees next to houses, you're going to have problems some day? Grrrr.

Know what the most annoying thing is? The tree belongs to the City of Chicago, so I can't do a thing about it. Except pay through the nose for the damage it does to my pipes. Apparently, if the pipes are under my house, it's my responsibility no matter the cause.

Anyone else think that's really, really annoying?