poop-tastic

North Carolina seems to have gotten an excessive amount of rain/snowfall in the past couple of months. We found out the hard way yesterday that excessive rainfall can cause one's septic tank to overflow into one's bathrooms (that one meticulously cleaned, scrubbed, and organized a week ago). Unfortunately, we didn't realize the problem until 5:00 when the water in the guest bathroom was soaking into the hallway carpet, and it was dark and pouring rain outside.

After many, many calls, we got two companies to tell us they might be able to make it out the next day, and one guy to tell us there was a chance he could make it out last night. Apparently the overflow was happening to a lot of people in our city, and septic tank workers were a little overworked. Until that point though, we were going through our towels like nobody's business, and this pregnant woman wasn't allowed to pee in our own toilet.

Debating whether Jude and I needed to stay in a hotel or find a friend's home to stay in for the night, our family headed to WalMart to pick up more towels, flashlights (some people across Winston were having power outages because of the ice), and carpet cleaner to hopefully salvage our hallway carpet. And then because we were trying to keep Jude out of our sewage smelling home for as long as possible, we stopped at our local Mexican restaurant for dinner. Somewhere in the middle of my chicken nachos, Shawn got a call from one of the companies who'd said they wouldn't have time to come out until the next day - who was now saying he could come out in about an hour!!

We knew we were probably going to get price gauged, so we were surprised when we were told the cost would be $300 (we were expecting more like $500-$600). The guy who came to fix the tank was so nice, and took care of the problem quickly. He told Shawn that there's basically nothing we can do to prevent this from happening again - beyond hoping it doesn't rain this much in the future. He DID say our septic tank and pipes were in great shape, which is always nice to hear.

So for the next week or so - until this crazy wet weather passes - he told us to just conserve water and toilet paper, and to not flush wipes down the toilet (which I didn't think we ever do, but apparently he found some while he was cleaning). There's apparently a good chance - in this weather - that it'll overflow again. Some days I hate being an adult.

And now, for listening to me whine about our septic tank, allow me to include some pictures of cute bath-time Jude (and a video of his sweet giggles)!