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Posts Tagged ‘poop’

Oh Black Water Keep on Flowin’

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2022| 6 Comments »

In the RV world, (and perhaps other worlds as well) we talk about waste holding tanks in terms of Grey tanks which holds water from the sinks, shower and washing machines. We also have the dreaded black tanks which hold the waste from the toilet. There is a sewer hose, often called the, ‘Stinky Slinky’ you hook up from an outlet on the rv to the dump station in the campground. There is a valve you need to open so the stuff in the holding tanks can flow down the sewer hose and into the dump station.

And now you know everything you need to know to follow the following story.

Before we even purchased the RV I read a ton of articles about black water screw ups. All written under the guise of helping the newbie avoid the same fate. I laughed, I cried, I shivered in fear and disgust. In the end I came away with a wealth of knowledge and a vow not to make those same mistakes. I am proud to say that after four years I have not made any of those mistakes. Instead I created my own.

Knowing you are only supposed to dump your black tanks when they are full we didn’t even bother to hook up the stinky slinky at our first two sites. Talk about a good reason to procrastinate!

After several successful sewer encounters I found myself getting a little cocky because the only ‘issues’ we were having was positioning the rv correctly. We have two black tanks and positioning the rv so we could connect both tanks to the dump station proved to be tricky. I’m always able to reach one with the slinky but the other is almost always just out of reach. But we always figured it out.

Eventually, as promised by many blogs, the fateful day came. Once again I could easily reach one black tank but not the other. I just needed another half an inch if even that. I really didn’t want to get out another 10 feet of sewer line for half an inch. They are called slinky’s because the accordion out. Certainly I could make up a half an inch!

I always start from the dump station and work towards the rv. First the fitting to the sewer, then a ‘Y’ connector and then the slinky’s to the Y connector then the other end of the slinky’s to their respective tanks. First side wasn’t a problem. The second tank I stretched the sewer hose really tight and was able to snap it into place. Success! We had not dumped at the previous site so I knew we needed to dump the tanks and while I was bent down at the outlet anyway I went ahead and pulled the valve to let the poop fly. Feeling quite pleased I looked down along the sewer line to the dump station and much to my horror the other end of the slinky was no longer attached to the Y connector! Luckily there was no four foot poop geyser as one blogger promised, nor was there a quickly forming lake Pooperior. There was however, a small poop pond beginning to form. I slammed the valve closed and made a heroic 10 foot leap grabbing the free end of the stinky slinky and held it high in the air stopping the flow of poop. I’m here to tell you it didn’t smell great. And I realized that the ‘pond’ was going to grow a little as I still had to re-attach the end of the hose. I took a breath, (not a deep one) assumed the Super Man pose and slammed the end of the hose to the Y connection spilling only a little more poop. Now what do I do? I looked around, we were the last RV in the row, nobody was around, nobody saw. The proper thing to do was inform the campground who would asses the situation, I have heard that they can charge you if they have to clean it up, or call a company to clean it up. I decided it wasn’t that bad, I didn’t see any lumps, sometimes having Crohn’s disease has its benefits, (some of you will understand). I disposed the rubber gloves and put on new ones. I hooked up our extra garden hose and started to flood the area. It only took a few moments for the gravel to go from brown to clear. Again I looked around, there were no cries of dissent, no fits of laugher, not a face peeking out of another RV. I started to relax even the smell was fading quickly. The whole incident was coming to a close without anyone the wiser. I stood there water hose in hand, I was satisfied I got through this unscathed when I heard my wife’s voice coming through the open window, “Did we have a toxic spill?”

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We Don’t Have Children Because…

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , on December 18, 2010| 4 Comments »

Two recent events brought me to the writing of this post.  The first was that somebody asked me if I had any children.  For the last year or so I have responded to that question by saying, “Well, we did have a boy but he was allergic to the dog so we had to adopt him out.”  I really enjoy it when the response is a look of horror, in which case I add, “Well we had the dog first!”

As to why we don’t have children? There are a multitude of reasons and be aware I have gathered the following information from years of observation and the list is in no particular order:

1)      I am cheap, kids are expensive.

2)      They really don’t make good listeners

3)      They make noise, sometimes they make a lot of noise

4)      Poop, pee, puke, yes the three P’s.  I’m not fond of cleaning up after myself why would I commit to years of cleaning somebody else’s.

5)      Confrontation, I try to avoid confrontation at all costs, why would I want something living under my roof that almost by definition is going to be confrontational? 

6)      I’m tired.

7)      At a certain age they ask, “why” all the time.  The only answer I have to “Why?” is “Because” don’t believe me? Ask my wife.  I know it is annoying, I know it is not always an appropriate answer, but seriously it is usually the only answer I have.  Why? You ask? Because!

8)      Both my wife and I hate repeating ourselves, it is bad enough when we have to for each other because one or the other is mumbling while in a different room with our back turned while the television is blasting away and the washing machine is on. But to repeat ourselves because the little monster just doesn’t want to do what is being asked?  That would not bode well. 

9)    When they eat, they are rather messy.  For some reason people think it is cute to carry around a picture with the child’s face covered in food.  For me it is just disgusting.  

10)  While in a drug store my wife thought it would be funny to show me a snot-sucker.  I felt sick for a week.

The second event which brought me to write this post concerns a friend of ours.  They went to a pizza joint where they give the kids some pizza dough, and with that pizza dough the kids can make any shape they want and the restaurant then makes a pizza out of the child’s creation.  I was informed this is supposed to be a mushroom.  A mushroom was not my first guess.

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saving time

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , on November 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Our dog, Sequoia has epilepsy, for years we managed to keep it under control through diet. Not long ago we had to resort to medication. The first type made her absolutely insane. Switching her medication was not as easy as it sounds because she had to be on her old medication at full dose and at the same time be on her new medication at full dose. At this point not only was she insane dog, she was insane dopey dog. She did not have a lot of muscle control in her back-end and was tripping over her own back legs. Her medication made her incredibly thirsty, her thirst combined with her loss of muscle control meant she could not hold her pee through the night, much to her dismay there were a few nights she couldn’t hold her poop either. It didn’t seem to matter what time I checked on her or how many times I would take her out by morning time I would be cleaning up pee.  In retrospect I think she may have done it on purpose, payback for making her feel like crap.  Unknown to her however I’d rather clean up after her than not have her around and I re-assured myself that there must be a light at the end of the tunnel.   So I’m not sure who had the last laugh.

Finally we were able to stop giving her the original medication and she is doing better, only the occasional accident and has not pooped in her room at all.  And praise the Lord and pass the bourbon she is so much calmer than she was.  Not only that, at the 5:30am walk it was very quick, she wouldn’t even have to poop, she would quickly pee and want back into the house, I would feed her and then take her out again when we left for work, at which time she would finish her business.

A few days ago I started to think about daylight savings.  Would Sequoia be able to handle that extra hour?  I came up with a plan.  I would ease into it over a two-day period.  I usually get up at 5:30am and take her out.  I figured that on Saturday I would get up at 6 and if that went well on Sunday I would get up at the new 5:30.  For those of you who are a little more astute, you may already see the flaw in my plan.  For the rest of us here is the problem.  We were supposed to turn the clocks back on Saturday night not Sunday.  So when I looked at my clock at 5:30am, that’s right it was only 4:30.  I was patient and waited till my clock said 6am and I took her out.  Of course it was only 5am so the reality of the situation was that I was going the wrong way.  You may be thinking, so what? You went to bed at the same time so the amount of hours never changed, no big deal, just start over the following day.  There is yet another twist in the road. 

On the weekends, unless we have something planned I will get up at the usual 5:30am let the dog do her business feed the dog and cats and go back to sleep.  We may not get up again till 10:00am.  Which is exactly what happened this particular time.  The difference was my wife figured out my time mistake when I got back into bed which was at 6:20am which was really 5:20am.  At this time we adjusted the clock to the correct time and went blissfully back to sleep. We finally left the bedroom around 10am.  As I opened the bedroom door I realized my second mistake of the new timezone.  The dog had eaten earlier than usual and we were up later than usual.  I opened up her bedroom door and there sat a very forlorn looking dog who had pooped on the floor.  

I’m thinking she got over her incident as she got to go to Petco today and is currently fast asleep on the sofa.  Having made two mistakes so quickly in the new timezone leaves me a little leary about what the rest of the winter brings.

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