Have you ever had to face the daunting task of .... (shhhh, keep it
down)  ..... cleaning out the septic holding tank?.... Those of you who
are squeamish, perhaps you should not read this.  But, those of you who
have courage in your hearts and curiosity in your noggin's, read on and
I'll tell you a tale that will frighten little children, and impress old
men.  Please, before you read on... Those of you who will
continue.....Let us pray.  May the Lord forgive me for what I've done
and am about to tell you.  And for those who are going to read this, may
God have mercy on your souls.  You now will know the purpose of the
phrase "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!"

I finally did it.  The job I had put off for almost a year.  (My God,
what is that thing?!)  Good thing, too.  The reason why I didn't have a
working toilet in 5-th wheel trailer.  The wall.  That which is so
dreaded that people almost never ever talk about it openly in polite
company.  (Oh! My! God!  Not that!!)  That which even talkers don't
mention.  (Run!!!)  I faced this foe.  And the first thing that entered
my mind was "I need to tell my friends about this one!" and I thought
"My enemies will love it!"  (Somebody help him!!)

And in my aloneness, in the deafening silence that enveloped me like a
forbidding shadow, as I entered into the valley of the shadow of (...
well, you know) and began the task set before me, I thought of God, and
entertained the hope of a miracle.  "Oh, Father, if it may be so, take
this cup away from me, ... but yet, let thine will be done, not mine."
And if you think this prayer wasn't necessary then you've never cleaned
this item in the trailer.

First to let you know the background of this great horror.  The trailer
in which I live, by my having bought it in 2003, was built in 1976 and
is now 32 years old.  I had been having trouble with the septic system
from the start.  After a few months it started overflowing.  Not into
the toilet bowl like when a toilet gets clogged and water backs up - but
flowing out through the underbelly cover instead of draining into the
outside drain/connecting pipe that leads to the septic system outside.
I could look under the trailer outside and see water spilling through
seams in all areas near the bathroom.  Why would it do that?!?!  I
wondered.  And little did I know.  Little did I suspect.  Little did I
prepare for this day.  Had I known from the start.........

Knowing  in my deepest places, this dreaded path can only be faced one
way, I knew I alone was faced with a task that no self-respecting human
would ever want - that every sane and gentle person turns and runs
screaming from - that no kind and compassionate person even mentions in
society - cleaning and repairing the septic system.  (and the audience
gasped, "No!")

I have haunting memories of growing up on the farm and trying to help
dad clean out the septic system.  It is the most horrible of jobs
because of everything that must be dealt with.  I have these memories
burnt into my heretofore innocent brain.  My dad's bravery and courage
astounded me - when he went to work opening the septic tank and going
through the process of cleaning out the septic system using buckets, and
shovels and anything else that would help.  Oh, Lord, the karma that he
must have paid off through doing that job.   That was not one of the
"good ole' days".

Now, on with the rest of the story.

These days we have modern conveniences and we expect them to work.  And
when something doesn't, there's hell to pay.  Tonight, hell sought
payment from within my very being, and I had but one choice.  There was
nowhere to turn except down the road marked "To Pay Hell In Full - go
this way" and it pointed an arrow at me.

It began with the holding tank.  An RV septic holding tank is where
human waste is stored until it can be emptied.  (You see where this is
going now, don't you.)  In my trailer, the holding tank valve is always
open making it possible to always drain.  But, it didn't drain and I had
to find out why - after all "The Buck Stops Here."  (Yes, there are
other words that can be interchanged with the word 'Buck', but the jokes
are bad enough already - and be mindful that I've probably written a few
here, but in the end could not do it - could not leave them in for
everyone to read and so have edited them out.  You can imagine what you
will.)

So, I borrowed a 5 hp, 12 gallon shop-vac, and found my latex gloves.
(I was lucky.  I had three left and one of them broke when I put it on.
- - - of course, if I had no gloves at all, I would have postponed this
job.  Scratch that.  I was as unlucky as a professional lottery player.
 I found 2 gloves that did work.)

Knowing that I might not live through this, I wrote out my will, and
then went in - - - after I vacuumed the whole trailer first in an
attempt to delay even more.  And played with the cats.  And washed my
clothes.  And painted the trees.  And retread my tires, and put more
asphalt on the roads.  It didn't work well enough,  - - -

and the darkness called to me again, and I went.... with sword..uhm....
vacuum in hand.  The dragon... er... holding tank lay ahead ... waiting
in the darkness before me.  I could only hear my heart beating as I
walked foward into the laire of the dragon... I mean, holding tank.
While I knew what I faced, I didn't know what I faced.  My naivete'
served to blind me.  I was doomed from the start.   I could hear babies
weeping and women crying somewhere off in the distance.

The cavalry never came.

I entered the bathroom with 2 flashlights, one was a small hand held
that could fit inside the tank - one was larger for trying to bring
forth whatever light from above that would help.   If I had thought of
it, I would have taken my rosary, too.  I already removed the toilet
fixture.  The tank underneath has a 4-5 inch hole in the top where the
porcelain toilet fixture bowl fits onto it. So, I could maneuver some to
see.  I peered inside.

It had been 9 months that it was not being used, and I thought there
would be no smell.  The mind plays tricks on you sometimes like that.
When you're alone, in the dark, maybe it's the middle of the night, and
all around is silent and you have no one to call for help.....one can
lie to oneself when one least expects it.  And when the lie is found
out, and the truth comes, in this dark night, no one will hear you
scream, no one will hold your nose for you, no one will give you an air
freshener.  No one  will go into the cave with you.

And no one will get near you when you come back out from it.

Still, the truth or a lie didn't matter this time.  It didn't matter,
because there was no turning back.  There was only forward.  I had no
choice.  I was entering the valley of the shadow....etc.   I had to face
this, one way or another, sooner or later, with gloves or without, ready
or not, red rover, red rover, let Jodie come over.  Tell him to pray
when he comes and may God have mercy on his soul.

I saw inside the tank and saw only partially what I had to face.  As
mild as it seems, it looked like all I had to do was clean up some soil
or dirt.

That's what it looked like.  It helped me to think of it that way.  For
a few moments, I even thought of spring breezes.  I wondered, could this
job be easier than I thought?  Would it be short - quick - over soon????

No.

No.

No.

And soon, reality came.  And I still didn't want to believe  - - -  but
I knew.  The dragon was near.

I smelled his breath.

And I knew then, something big this way comes.

I began by putting the vacuum hose down into the holding tank because
all I could see with my virgin eyes was what looked like soil, or dried
up, "bacterially decomposed organic material".  To ease your minds right
now, there was no raw sewage.  Remember I had not used the fixture for
over 9 months.  (You looked worried, so I wanted to ease your minds.)

The vacuum went to work first.  And I could hear the debris being taken
into the hose into the shop-vac.  And I thought - "Hey, this will be
easy."  I moved it around to try different areas of the holding tank.

How naive I was in that younger time.

And then the debris stopped being sucked in.  I pushed the hose around
to get more, but I didn't hear it collect debris like it had.  I
entertained the thought "Is it through?"  but something inside me told
me "No, not even close.  The dragon lives nearby."

I put my arm down inside the tank,

and the suffering began.

Only my left arm would fit because it was such a tight fit.  And the
jagged edge of hole started scratching my skin, making me concerned
about infection and septicemia (sp.).  When my arm cleared through, I
began reaching into the darkness to find what I could find.  Everywhere
around, as far as my arm could reach and my gloved hand could touch,
were some kind of "things".  I could feel the crust of the organic
material 1 inch thick lying on the bottom, and with my gloved hands
(thank you, God, for latex gloves, by the way), I began to claw the
darkness, and the "soil" to break it up, so the vacuum could clear it
out eventually.

I began to hit other things - other than "organic material", that is.
And that's when I realized fully the truth of what I had found inside
this cave.  I realized this RV had been decades without ever having it's
holding tank cleaned out, and there were people who had lived inside
this trailer that had acted irresponsibly, blindly, insensitively,
without caring or concern about those that followed, without
foreknowledge or forthought about how a toilet in a trailer works.
There had been people that lived in this RV, that I was now cussing at
in my mind because of what they dumped down into the toilet that landed
in, AND STAYED ... in the holding tank throughout or during all these
years.  Things that don't decompose.  Things that clog up and block the
drain pipe.

Things that wait for you in the darkness.

I found these things.  I found the dragon.

And the only weapon I had besides determination (or bullheadedness) was
my left arm, my fingers, a latex glove that could break any second, and
the thought that "If I live through this, I'm definitely putting this
into my newsletter."

I couldn't see anything inside.  I was going in blind, so I only could
rely on my fingers.  The idea of insects didn't enter my mind,

yet.

It didn't have to.....

yet.

I began to grab at whatever I felt, and I pulled.  Sometimes whatever it
was came easily, sometimes it was stuck and I had to work at it and work
at it with a garden spade, until it gave way.  I would also continue to
scratch and claw at the crusted "organic" material that still was 1 inch
thick on the bottom of the holding tank.

Slowly, the entire mess came forward, and I would scrape it towards the
hole to be removed.  I would remove my arm from the "Godforsaken" hole,
bringing with it handfulls of debris.  And the "things" came.  It began
with a large dried-solid cloth, or what used to be a cloth, possible a
glove or shorts even, or maybe a hat, but it was unidentifiable in it's
state now.  Then hard plastic pieces, then a chicken leg bone, that had
been there for many "YEARS" based on it's radioactive carbon dating that
I did on the spot with my Acme Radioactive Carbon Dating On The Spot Kit
(from Acme Amalgamated).

I realized I was now on an archeological dig discovering things about
the people that had lived there - things I could have lived without
knowing.  And the things continued to come forward as I alternated with
bringing my arm in and out of the tricky hole - continuing to scratch it
up as I came and went.  But, I was determined to get this done and I was
not going to let arm problems stop me.  I quickly learned that if I went
into a meditative state as I was pushing in or out, I could slip my arm
in and out of the hole easier and with less pain.

Then, all of a sudden, in a desparate attempt to do harm before it would
be gone forever, the dragon whipped around, and lashed out at me.  The
dragon sank it's teeth into me - in my twisting and turning and tight
maneuvering, a blood vessel burst in my upper arm.

Ow!  Hurt!  Pain!  Agony!  Sympathy.... (gasp!)...  must.... have .....
(gasp!) ...  sympathy.... quick......

But, I couldn't let it slow me down or stop me.  I was fighting the
dragon and winning.  I believed in God, myself and the horse I rode in
on!  The pain slowly but excrusiatingly diminished as I doggedly
continued on relentless in my battle with the darkness.

One moment, I actually felt a slight tinge of hope that this task could
be done.  I didn't want it to cloud my judgement, so I set it aside.  I
couldn't let hope distract me.  I had a dragon in my grasp - a big huge
dragon with pointy teeth and would leap out at you with fierceness.  (I
put that last part in for dramatic effect.)  Although I couldn't see
what was inside, I could now begin to recognize what I was touching.  I
brought up more cloth, larger hard plastic, and eventually several
gallons of "organic material", more cloth, a sock, or two or three?  I
would send the vacuum in periodically to clean up what I couldn't grab,
and I would hear the swish through the vac hose.  And on I went.

Finally, as if out of nowhere came silence - an absence of sound which I
had not expected - there was silence in the hose.  And using the small
flashlight, I peered inside as much as possible.  I saw the final
things, a cigarette lighter, a cigarette butt, and Jimmy Hoffa's body
(Mystery solved.  I always wondered what happened to him).  After
clearing those out, I let the vac finish with anything left, and then
pulled out.  I brought a water hose in to test leaks and other things.
It didn't bother me when it splashed up in my face, because my mouth was
closed.

And with a little waterhose testing, I had found that I had battled the
dragon and won.  The dragon was vanquished.  The dragon was gone.  The
cave was now mine.  It would serve its purpose once again.  The ordeal
was soon all but finished and I drove over to my sisters as fast as I
could and took a shower.

Now, there are still things to do before the porcelain fixture is
reinstalled, but the dragon is through.  And I will say that as dragons
go, this one wasn't evil.  It was daunting.  It was challenging.  It was
disgusting.  (I didn't mention insects, I mean, worms, for example.)
And I'm a better person having faced this dragon and know in my heart,
that after having done this, I'm convinced that once they learn of what
I did, no woman will ever want to have sex with me or kiss me ever again.

Ah, such is life.  And when you speak of me, please speak kindly.

Joseph "Jodie" S. of Texas