Thursday, May 13, 2010

Can You Dig It?

"I've successfully dragged myself to the shore of the lake; I've got my trowel; and I've got a plan." The crazy lady was feeling confident. She reached out to break ground on her aquaduct. "Ha-ee-yah!" she said as she jammed the trowel into the yucky black clay. And she pulled on the handle of the trowel. ...and found that her body was moving towards the trowel, not the other way around. Oh dear...

The crazy lady heaved on the trowel. Nothing happened for a long time and then it suddenly wrenched free with a sickening slurp. She shook the trowel at the puddle. ...and the glob of icky black clay stayed firmly stuck to the trowel. She tried again but only succeeded in wrenching her wrist.

The crazy lady went after the clay-encrusted trowel with her fingers. Five. Minutes. Later. She declared victory. Clearly this was not going to work.

The crazy lady threw the trowel towards the terrible tiny door and put her head on her hands to think. And maybe to swear a little. And possibly fight back tears.

Eventually, the crazy lady got cold. And angry. She clawed at the clay with her hand. To her amazement, fingers were successful where the trowel was not.

"Bloody hell."

The crazy lady frantically dug a channel from the lake to the sump wiggling backwards on her stomach in the cold, wet mud.

"Success!"

The blissful sound of water dropping from the end o the channel warmed the crazy lady's heart and gave her the strength to drain the kitchen lake as well.

No amount of soaking or scrubbing would remove the black clay from the skin on her hands, but the crazy lady didn't care. She slid down under the bubbles with a satisfied smile. And a glass of Merlot within easy reach.

Looking for the Meaning of Life

When we last saw the crazy lady, she was sitting on the damp, cold concrete of the porch wrestling with existential questions.

"Why did I buy a house?"

"Why did I buy this house?"

"If it fell down in an earthquake, could I pick out my rubber stamps and the cat and just start over?"

Despair.

But the crazy lady was not willing to admit defeat. She took the trowel in her teeth and started the long, exhausting dive through the terribly, tiny crawlspace door.

Thinking it made sense to start at the furthest puddle and work back towards the sump, she set her sights on the under-bedroom lake.

Up over the sewer pipe she went, stopping only to spew expletives at a half-buried chunk of concrete wanting a closer relationship with her left leg. From there, it was a fairly easy elbow drag to the shore of the inky black lake.

The crazy lady could see clearly that all she had to do was dig a small trench from the lake to the sump, and all of the water would drain. Piece o' cake...