Monday, February 2, 2009

Storm In The New Year

There was a doozy of a storm New Year's Day. The wind howled, the porch cover shuddered, and the waters, they were a risin'. Under the house. Ms. Ruby had VERY wet feet. The crazy lady once again donned her miner's light and sludge sweats.

Out on the porch, the table and chairs, blown by the wind, were huddled against the garage door. The crazy lady waded through the tangle of PVC until she once again faced the terrible, tiny door...

Ms. Ruby didn't always have such great taste in humans, and some past human had allowed her back patio to be poured above grade. Sigh.

The crazy lady flipped open the hatch and propped it with a board. Down on her hands and knees she faced the not-so-gaping maw of the crawlspace. Flipping the miner's light on, she walked her hands down into the opening, then forward, then down into the crawlspace, then up over the sewer pipe ("Don't put any weight on that. That stuff is known for breaking. They don't make sewer pipes out of that stuff anymore.") in a tortuous almost-handstand push-up, all the while dragging her body across the nice, sharp concrete corners. "It's good to be a less-than-full-sized person." thought the crazy lady, pushing aside nightmare visions of getting stuck in halfway through the crawlspace door like Pooh at Rabbit's house.

To the left, a glistening lake under the bedroom. To the right, a reservoir under the kitchen and dining room. Straight ahead, lots of inky black, damp-to-wet clay. Right under the crazy lady's nose, the sump mostly empty. Hmmm...

The crazy lady got into plank position over the sewer pipe and walked her feet up onto the concrete. Grateful that there were no witnesses, she then walked her hands back over the sewer pipe and her feet up and out of the terribly, tiny door. "Mustn't let my arms collapse," thought the crazy lady. "A face plant in this nasty smelling mud might just push me over the edge." Fueled by her frustration, she pushed with her arms and walked her toes until she was lying on the patio.

The crazy lady suppressed a groan. No sense in alarming the neighbors.

Sitting on the cold, damp concrete, the crazy lady began to question her sanity.