About a month ago I began noticing that the toilet downstairs would gurgle every time someone took a shower in the house. For a few weeks I ignored it, thinking the problem would solve itself. Then one night, I fell asleep on the couch during an episode of The Gilded Age, which is the proper way to experience The Gilded Age if you didn’t know. I awoke with a start to the sound of the gurgling toilet.
“Okay. No big deal. Alex just finished showering, and the toilet is just saying hey”, I thought.
But then, as soon as I settled back into my show, the toilet gurgled so loud and with such force that it splashed a geyser of toilet water all over the floor. This splashing was a new development in the mystery. Also, it happened at the same moment that I heard water gushing downward through the pipes in the wall after the sound of a toilet flushing upstairs. Typically, this is a very normal sound because we live in a finicky old farmhouse. Below is a drawing of our two bathrooms, and how I assume the pipes work (in red).
The forceful toilet fountain/geyser was a new feature, and disturbing enough that I decided to take matters into my own hands: Telling Alex.
The next day I told Alex about the gurgling toilet.
Then I told him about the gurgling toilet multiple times each day for two more weeks.
Each day, the gurgling became increasingly ominous. It picked up in pace, duration, and aggression. Finally, Alex informed me that he had scheduled a plumber to come out and assess the situation, and that it would be during a time that I am working from home.
Plumbing Internship Day
Later that week, the plumber arrived in a small white Mazda sedan. Trying not to seem too eager, I waited a minute or two before answering the door, feigning surprise at the calling of my new house guest.
“Oh! Yes! I remember now! Our toilet! Come right in!” I exclaimed, opening the door for him to enter.
A mere boy walked through my door, revealing a soft, reddish peach fuzz mustache through his threadbare cloth mask that was dangling below his nose. He carried with him a cute silver toolbox. The kind I would buy had I decided on a whim to become handyman. Or a plumber.
I began describing to him the toilet problem. “It’s like. Gurgling? When we shower? But both showers for some reason? And also sometimes when we flush upstairs?” I showed him around the house, helping him turn on both showers so he could hear the gurgling himself. Then I said, “Well! I’ll leave you to it! If you need me, I’ll be over here in my office working!” Below is a layout of the downstairs area. As you can see, my home office is located right next to the bathroom.
On my way back to my office, I grabbed a handful of Oreos to snack on while I worked.
45 seconds later, the young fellow popped his head into my office to ask me how long it would take for the gurgling to start. Because my mouth was full of Oreos, I couldn’t answer right away, so he waited in my office for me to finish my cookies before I responded, “oh… five or so minutes?” He accepted my answer and went back to the bathroom.
Shortly thereafter, the gurgling started up, and he turned off all the showers. For a few minutes, it was quiet as he got to work removing the toilet from the floor. I returned to my working and Oreo eating. Then, out of nowhere, the plumber popped his head back into my office.
“I’m gonna need your help,” he said. I nervously followed him into the bathroom as he explained my task. “The wax ring is stuck to the bottom of the toilet. I’m gonna lift this here toilet, and you’re gonna peel off the wax ring,” he explained, handing me a box of rubber gloves.
Eager to be helpful, I quickly pulled two blue rubber gloves onto my hands as he lifted the toilet perpendicular to the floor, spilling the remaining toilet water all over the floor. Together, we cleaned the mess and then got back to work. He lifted the toilet and instructed me to peel the wax ring off.
Now. A wax ring sounds nice and all, but if you’re picturing a cute little circle of wax that is the texture of an Anthropologie candle, then you are being delusional. What you need to picture instead is a ring in the shape of a large circle. Let’s say the size of a large 7-11 cup. And the wax consistency is soft. It’s like a super sticky and wet clay that has been mixed with honey. I began neatly picking at the wax, which was coming apart in small gooey pieces. But what Plumber Boy forgot to mention was exactly how to remove the wax ring. As his arms began violently shaking from holding up the weight of a heavy toilet at a weird angle, he yelled, “you have to take the whole thing off at once!”
And so, I grabbed the circumference of the now de-formed wax ring and attempted to pull the whole thing off in one go. At once, my rubber gloves got sucked deeply into the toilet wax, and upon pulling, my hand slipped out of the glove, leaving behind a now flaccid rubber glove stuck to the wax goo at the bottom of a once-gurgling toilet.
My new manager looked at me with utter disappointment. The he quietly said, “you lift the toilet, and I’ll take off the wax.” We switched roles, and eventually, he removed the wax ring. He began explaining to me the next step in the process, which in summary is “to snake this puppy and see if we can find the clog”. Taking that as my cue to leave, I slinked back into my office to get back to my day job.
As I worked, Plumber Boy popped his head through the door to fill me in every few minutes on the process.
“Just gotta get this here snake down there and she’ll do the job!”
“I never seen a clog too tough for this baby!”
“I’m thinkin’ we need to try out the hundred footer. She seems to be gettin’ stuck on somethin’ down in there!”
With each update I gave him a smile and thumbs up, muttering positive feedback and responses like, “that’s great!” and “mmm hmmm!” and “sounds good!”
Eventually, his snake machine was turned off, and he came in with a new update.
“Well. I can’t seem to locate the problem. I got my biggest snake down in there, and she gets even the biggest stuff out. We’re talking toilet paper. We’re talkin’ tampons. Ma’am. I think your septic is just straight outta room. When was the last time you flushed that thing?” he asked.
Timeout: I’m sorry. Flushed a septic? What does that even mean? Doesn’t it just like, go into a pipe that flows down to the core of the earth to burn or something? People are flushing their septic tanks? What even is a septic? And where the eff is Alex?
“This septic has not been flushed in at least forty years,” I responded.
Plumber Boy’s eyes widened as big as then can possibly go, and he said, “Ma’am. You need to be flushin’ your septic every three years. I’m not sure how to help you at this point. I’ve cleared thousands of toilets and I’ve never heard of someone goin’ that long without flushin’ their septic.”
“Huh. Okay. Well. Good to know.”
My helplessness hit a nerve, and PB then responded sympathetically, “Tell ya what. Let’s give her one more go with the snake and see if we can get her cleared. I’m gonna turn on all the water in the house and really get her flooded. We’re goin’ in with the Power Flush. You wanna run upstairs and flush that toilet when I tell ya to?”
“Sure!” I responded. I was eager to win my new manager back over after the failed attempts in my first day on the job. I ran upstairs and waited for his signal to flush.
Five minutes later, I heard. “Okay! You can flush it now!” I pressed down the flusher, and watched the toilet water slowly cycle down.
“AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Terrified, I ran down the stairs, yelling, “You good??”
PB emerged from the bathroom, his face covered in water. “Ah. Just got splashed in the face with this here toilet drain, but we’re all good.”
“Oh my – Oh my god. Are you — okay? Oh god.” I responded.
“Eh. Just part of the gig I s’pose,” he responded, positively.
We stood there quietly for a moment, when I finally interrupted the silence with, “Hey. I never, uh, actually caught your name.”
“Name’s Tyler.”
“Oh. Nice to meet you. I’m Lindsey.”
I gave him the hand towel hanging by the sink as we nervously exchanged darting eye contact with one another and he dabbed the toilet water off of his face.
“Well, I can’t solve your plumbin’ issue, ma’am. You really gotta get that septic flushed. I’ll give ya a discount since I couldn’t solve the problem. I really feel bad about this,” he explained.
“Oh! No discount! We want to pay you for your work! We really appreciate you making such a great attempt!”
Shortly thereafter, Tyler handed me an invoice for SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS and the contact of a septic flushing company. Walking out the front door, he asked me to keep him posted on the septic flushing. He had never heard of such an impressive feat, and wanted to hear all about the once in a lifetime opportunity. I promised we’d keep him updated, and escorted him out of the house.
…
To be continued…