“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Saturday, March 27, 1999
Stuff around the house
No reading, no writing, no working out.
Finished the storm door. Worked on the computer. I’ve been spending hours a day for what seems like weeks working on computers – my laptop – my desktop – my PC at work – other peoples machines- if I have to watch Windows reboot one more time I’ll go nuts. I’ve been slaving away upgrading the home desktop it so it will play Lee’s games. The kids have broken a cabinet door in the kitchen, from hanging on it, swinging back and forth. I removed it and glued it up, holding it together with pipe clamps while the glue dried.
Most of the day, however, is spent up on the roof. The sewer line between the washer and the rest of the house is plugged up again. There must be something nasty down there that keeps holding up bits of washed out laundry, fabric fibers, and stopping the flow. When that happens our washer won’t drain and soapy water gushers out the vent pipe.
I am fixated now, tilting at windmills, I’ll get that mother out. We have hired plumbers before but obviously they have not cleaned everything out.
On the roof with a sewer snake I bought, pushing it down the vent pipe. I’ll twist it and pull it out, the sharp spiral head full of old lint, sewage, black water, and bits of some sort of metal strips. That’s what’s causing the holdup. Those filthy pieces of oxidized iron have been down there probably since the house was built. I have no idea how much of it there is, how long it will take be to get it all out, even if I can get it all out.
It’s hard, nasty work. Cold mist falls, I pull 30 feet of heavy steel spring in and out, perched on the steep roof, my hands bleeding from tiny cuts, my clothes filthy with the sewage that comes out with the pipe auger.
Candy is pissed because I’m not in a very good mood.
And a piece of flash fiction for today:
Houses that Flip by Lenore Weiss
From Portland Review
Bill Chance 