Today was a bad day as a homeowner.

This is to be expected some days, especially when your house is 112 years old. It’s unfortunate that I just discovered that my plumbing is apparently also 112 years old. And was installed by a blind weasel with severe ADD.  Apparently.

The question is, why, after 112 years, should said plumbing choose to fail during the hottest days of the year. I suppose this is better than the coldest days of the year – maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, we now have a total and complete system failure.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I know nothing about plumbing. I have no interest in it. None. Never have. Never will. Not even now, when it would benefit me to know something about it. I do not want to know where waste goes once it leaves my body, or how it gets there. My job is just to expel it. And then I just want it gone. Nothing more. No no. No.

So with complete system failure, combined with my own ignorance of such things, I find myself at the mercy of plumbers. I am sure there are some good ones. And some bad ones. Perhaps like the one who just quoted me $16,000 to replace the sewer line to the alley. This, after I had already (over)paid them $4,800 for other repairs which, I suspect, caused the total failure in the sewer line (but I can’t prove this).

$16,000. That’s all the money I have in my savings account, to keep me afloat should I get the axe at work.  Add this little nugget to my new health insurance with its $16,000 deductible, and I am feeling just swell.  I mean, seriously, WTF, world?  I am getting second and third estimates on the whole sewer thing, but as it is the holiday, no one will even return my calls, much less come out to take a gander. So I am in danger of sewage backing up into my washing machine, tub, sinks, and floor drains until this is all fixed. A disgusting and horrifying image.

Who knows why these things happen when they do?  I often take it as some kind of a curse, sign, or metaphysical metaphor. Why is this happening to me (or rather, to my plumbing)? Is it related to my poor skills in setting boundaries in my life? My inability to declutter my space? Is it tied in some cosmic way to my female plumbing?  Does it have to do with letting  go of the past, of anger, of lessons learned that no longer need to be felt in agonizing detail? Is the Universe mad at me? Punishing me? Trying to teach me how to accept help?  What is the meaning of this???

Note to self: sometimes a duck is just a duck.