Fear of the septic tank

I can’t believe it was a whole year ago that I visited my parents in the U.S.  On one hand, it feels like years ago that I was there, but on the other, it feels like it was only a couple of months ago.

Recently I signed up for Timehop, a free service that you link to your social media accounts. Each day, you get an email with your status updates, tweets, etc. from exactly 1 year before.  Since I was in the U.S. at this time last year, I’ve been enjoying re-living a little bit of my trip each day, and seeing the funny things Hannah used to say before she could speak so well.

But, the daily re-living has made me remember the septic tank. Yeah, you read that right, the septic tank. My parents have one. I grew up with one. And well water. Whenever the power went out, we’d have no water either. But that’s another story for another day….

Back to the septic tank. The septic tank is toward the back of the side yard. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but, I mean to the side of the house, more to the back than the front.

When I was little, I used to avoid (as much as one could) playing near the septic tank. I gave that side yard a pretty wide berth. When I could help it. When other people were around and walking/playing/bike riding/horse riding through the area, I’d go there too. I didn’t want them to know that I was scared of the septic tank. But I was. Wuss.

I always imagined it to be this gigantic deep cylindrical thing, with a very thin lid on top, and dirt and grass on top of that. I thought that if I stood there too long, or jumped too high, or ran too fast, the lid would collapse and it would swallow me up.
RID-X Septic System Treatment: 2 Dose Powder

I’d fall in with spectacular fashion and be stuck in a huge pile of thick poop, trying to swim, but barely able to even hold myself up.  There was no ladder, and the walls were so high, there was no way I could pull myself out.

I was terrified of drowning, all by myself, in a pile of poop.  No one would find me, I’d be totally swallowed up by the crazy poop monster.

When I visited my parents last year, my Dad said he needed to open the lid of the septic tank.

“How are you going to do that?” I asked him, visions of huge tractors in my head. How else would you open a gigantic lid?

He looked at me funny. Like I was stark raving mad. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

We piled on our coats, hats, and boots (it was very cold over there!) and went outside.  I held Hannah particularly tight. I certainly didn’t want her to be gobbled up by the poop monster.

My Dad grabbed a shovel, dug up a tiny bit of dirt and grass, and then stopped.

Imagine my surprise, when the gigantic septic tank lid that I was scared of all those years turned out to be this:

Not even my leg would fit in there. And then I googled septic tanks, and found this:

Septic tank before installation. Image courtesy wikipedia

That is what I was afraid of all those years?!  I could stand up in that and not even get my head wet! Sigh.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

When I was a little porcupine. Wait, maybe It was a hedgehog….

People don’t really celebrate Halloween Down Under.  Ok, some do.  It’s definitely gaining popularity, but I’ve never once had any little zombies or fairies or the like come knocking on my door wanting a trick or a treat.  I will, however, be dressing Hannah up in her adorable little fairy outfit for the day.  I am American after all.  Plus I bought some candy corn from USA foods, along with 150 dum dum lollipops, so I’m all prepared.

But, I did grow up in the U.S. and I used to trick or treat every single year.  So here is a guest post by my Mom, for a little insight on me as a little tyke on Halloween.

Sheri Goes Trick-or-Treating

Yeah, that's me all right, and that readers, is the inside of a mobile home.

A long time ago in a country far away from where she lives now, Sheri went trick-or-treating for the first time.  We didn’t have a lot of money when the kids were small, so they never had store bought costumes.  Where money lacks, creativity reigns.  She was about 2 then, so one of her dad’s t-shirts pretty much covered her from neck to toe.  Add some brown material, felt feet, and a white t-shirt transformed into a pretty good hedge hog suit.

 

Her brother, Chris was always quite creative making his own costumes.  He dressed up as things most other kids never would have considered.  A bag of groceries, a TV set, and a museum all made appearances as his costumes over the years.  When he got older he made the simplest costume ever, a hooded sweatshirt, and some sunglasses – instant unibomber.

 

Sheri had some flashes of creativity of her own, though not in the same way as Chris.  Her and cousin Jennifer dressed up together as things like an enormous pair of underwear (complete with stains) or a giant pair of pants (with one girl in each leg.)

 

We lived out in the country, too far to walk from house to house.  Sure we could have gone into town like most people and walked through the neighborhoods there, but I didn’t want my kids getting their candy from random unknown strangers.  So we set out in the car and drove to the houses of people we knew in our area.

 

Many of them did not expect trick-or-treaters, especially that first year.  So they scrounged through their cupboards.  We may not have made it to as many houses as the people walking through town, but in addition to the usual fun-sized candy (and what is so fun about a half bite sized candy bar anyway?) they got full sized candy bars, hostess pies, pudding cups and that sort of thing.

 

In between houses, at least one kid had to sit in the back seat of the car, unseen in the dark by mom, who had to pay attention to the road.  Sheri’s first year trick-or-treating,  she sat in the back.  After making the rounds of all the people nearby that we knew we came home.  Chris got out of the car with a bag full of candy.  Sheri got out of the car with a bag of wrappers and a stomach ache.  Turned out she ate each thing she got between houses or on the way home.

 

Sadly she watched Chris eating candy for the next week or two while she had none.  She learned her lesson though, and never ate it all at once again.

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