Oh, I Love the Rainy Nights!

How about these awesome thunder storms we've been getting in the southern Pocono area? Poor New England has been swamped--and I do mean swamped--with about 11 inches on average from the same system giving me about 2 inches of rain and freakin' awesome light shows!

But even 2 inches of rain comes at a price.

So I am a relatively happy homeowner. Not a lot of neighbors, a great view from the deck, almost a full acre of land... and rusty pipes.

Now, we've all learned about how anyone in need of iron in their blood can come get a drink from my tap and be instantly healed for at least a year from an 8 ounce glass of water. And despite the ever-present orange glow that makes my bathtub look like a murder scene even on a good day, we really haven't had any major issues with the house since we bought it.

That is, until Mother's Day.

So I'm in the Basement of Little Light and Creepy Cobwebs. Rich is upstairs doing whatever Rich does on a Sunday morning. I was looking for my gardening tools so I could go out and try to make my house look semi-presentable with the 3 flats of impatiens I bought at the Homo-Depot when suddenly, from the Dark Cave of Eternal Dripping beneath the sink beside the washer comes a sound reminiscent of Niagara Falls. I drop my shovel (Ouch! My damn foot!) and quickly but limpingly, while cursing, made my way to that side of the basement and peer into the Dark Cave of Eternal Dripping. "Dark Cave" should give you a clue as to how much I could see of our new-found natural wonder.

Flashlight, I think, and turn around only to bang my head on a pipe in the ceiling.

Cursing, limping, and hoping to make a few tourist dollars off my newly discovered wonder, I make my way to the Stairs of Ominous Creaking Sounds and yell upstairs, "Rich!" maybe five or six times before I hear a faint, "Are you calling me?" from the living room. I roll my eyes, getting reminded of the new bruise from the pipe that will be forming on my forehead. I yell, in what I think is a sarcastic-laden way, "No, I'm calling my other boyfriend!"

I stand there for like 10 seconds, hear no movement from anywhere in the house, so I yell again, "Are you coming?!"

I hear him making his way to the top of the basement stairs. "Grab the flashlight before you come down!" I yell.

"What is going on?"

"I need a flashlight!" I turn back around, throwing my hands up in front of my eyeballs just in case another rogue pipe tries to take me out, and once again go to peer into the Dark Cave of Eternal Dripping. I hear Rich coming down the Stairs of Ominous Creaking, and he says, "I thought you weren't calling me..."

"Didn't you hear me? Hand me the flashlight."

"I thought you were trying to be funny."

Like a dumbass from Retard School, I point the flashlight toward my eyes while I click it on, blinding myself in the process of making sure the damn thing works. Then, with Rich hunkering down beside me saying "What's that noise?" we see it in all its splendid glory and beauty. Plus, I kinda knew what was happening as the Amazon made it's way toward nether regions of the unexplored basement, a pipe. Or rather, a pipe that looked like some sort of cap should be on it since it leads to absolutely nowhere except the empty space about 1 foot off the cement floor.

This, dear reader, is a Problem.

As the Basemantic Ocean slowly forms around our feet, I start yelling,"Make it stop! Make it stop!" and, amazingly enough, before our very eyes, Pipenagra Falls slowly dries up. We straighten up form our crouched positions and look at each other, puzzlement. If lightbulbs really did appear over people's heads, Rich's was a mega-watt floodlight complete with alarm. "Let's just put a bucket under the pipe, and empty it every night."

Okay, I think, this could work... so over the course of the day, we found out it takes either:

1. Three flushings of the toilet;
2. One ten-minute shower;
3. Or 1 load of dishes till the bucket needs emptied.

Granted, we could call a plumber, have him seal the pipe, and then have our whole house damaged because we don't have the money to put in a new septic system, because, alas, after three hours of snaking, we still couldn't get the pipe from spewing overflow into the Basemantic Ocean.

But we did find out that within the next two springs we will have public water and sewer. Thus, an end to orange water, Basemantic Oceans, and worrying about the cost of replacing our septic system...