No Solids

One grey winter's day, I was working in my office when my husband woke up. He did not, as he usually did, come say hi to me on his way to the kitchen to get coffee. When I left my office to talk to him, he was grumpy and pissed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"NOTHING."

Uh, that was clearly not correct, but I wasn't going to dig into it. I left him to it, and went back to my work.

He spent the day looking at his phone and giving me curt responses whenever I spoke to him. At two, I had to leave to meet someone. When I left, he pulled on his work boots.

I came back around 4:30. I parked in our driveway, got out of the car, and immediately smelled sewage. And I knew, it wasn't our neighbor's cows.

I walked to the side yard where our main sewer line left the house. I knew this pipe was a problem. Two years ago, on the Sunday of Labor Day, sewage fountained out of our shower, and I'd had to call an emergency plumber. The kid who responded, he was maybe nineteen, was really nice. He was also terrified of me, but I'd like to think that wasn't a reflection on me. Rather, it was clear this was his first job, and he'd had to up charge me for using his camera tool since my farm house plumbing wasn't built to code. He initially quoted me at $150 but with the up charge, the total came to $200, which was laughably cheap for a holiday Sunday callout when our plumbing was non-functional. Still, he was so nervous telling me a new price, I could see the sweat running into his eyes.

I paid the bill without complaint and later wrote his company to say he did a great job. He told me the roots were in the main sewage line, and the problem would keep happening until we fixed the pipe.

So why, on a winter afternoon with only three hours of daylight, my husband decided now was the time to fix our mainline, I didn't know, but I knew before I reached the side yard what was happening. I popped my head around the house and saw my husband in a hole he'd dug on the side of the house. He was half under the house, covered in something, be it mud or sewage, I didn't know.

"Hey," I said.

He didn't look at me.

I called his name, then called it again, this time louder. He looked up.

"DON'T USE THE PLUMBING."

"K," I said and went back into the house.

At least I knew why he'd been all upset. He'd spent all day thinking about re-doing the mainline, and the emotional weight of that had crushed all the joy out of my normally very upbeat husband.

I worked in my office until dark. About thirty minutes after sunset, I heard him come inside. Eventually, I heard him come into the office. I turned. He stood, only in his underwear, covered in something suspiciously brown.

"No solids," he said.

"Just solids?" I asked.

"No solids," he repeated.

"What about showering?"

"I have to risk it," he replied.

Then he turned and went up to the shower. That night we put no solids in our pipes.

The next morning though, after my cup of coffee, I did need some actual plumbing. My husband was up, mumbling something and clearly focused on whatever he had to do to fix the pipe. He was out the door before I was, going, I presumed, to the hardware store.

I had to go to work, but first, the gas station. I looked for my car keys. My cat, who has gotten fed twice every day in the last ten years (sometimes more depending on the communication failure rate between the humans) saw my husband leave, saw me pick up my car keys, and came running at me crying.

"I'm going to feed you, but when I get back," I told him.

Which, in fact, did not calm him down at all. I went to the door and he began to scream. But I did not have time to feed him first.

When I got back ten minutes later, the cat had worked himself into a frenzy. I fed him immediately, and he ate like he'd been wandering the desert for the last year. I got ready for work, and he came trotting in, still scream crying.

He was all out of sorts, but I had to go.

At about two, my husband texted me to tell me he'd fixed the plumbing. One of my friends and I had a running bet on when we thought I'd have a working toilet. Two p.m. on day two was not what either of us predicted.

When I came home at five, I went to the side yard before going inside. My husband was still half in the hole. This was ominous.

"Hey," I said.

"I found the real issue," he said, not looking at me. "But I'll have the plumbing working for real by dark."

I liked it when the plumbing worked for real so I left him to it.

When I went inside, the cat was still totally out of sorts. Who knows what sort of noises had been coming from under the floor all day. I dumped my stuff and called in a take out order for pizza. I wasn't totally sure we'd really have plumbing by dark.

I left to pick up the food and it started to rain, hard. My husband was still outside in the hole. Getting the food took longer than expected, and by the time I came home it was pitch dark out and the rain was still sheeting down.

I stepped into the house with the pizza. My husband sat on the couch. I asked the million dollar question.

"Do we have plumbing?"

He nodded. "Solids and all."

That night we put extra red pepper on our pizza. After all, we had plumbing that worked for real. Solids and all.