All I Can
Say
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It is a good thing you have me to
think of these things. It took a long time but I finally have the weather
figured out.
For years I have stated that weather
forecasters use the dart board method. They follow a probability theory that
some ding-bat engineer has worked up into a chart which a graphics specialist
transferred to a giant dart board. So the meteorologist is blindfolded, turned
in circles until dizzy, pointed toward the board, handed a dart. Wherever it
lands, that is the forecast for the day. I used to sneer that the dart never
landed on the right square.
All week the meteorologists have
predicted sunshine with 0% rain. We’ve had storms with as much as two inches of
rain every day. I’m wrong. The forecast is right. I don’t know how I could have
missed the obvious all these years. It’s the timing that is flawed. The monsoon
will end. Manana.
Made you feel better, didn’t I? Well,
somebody has to think of these things.
In case you are thinking to
attribute any genius to my mental abilities, I must confess, at times, I’m slow
on the uptake.
For about a month my bathroom shower
has been slow to drain. By the time I rinse my hair, I’m standing in a couple
inches of water. Soapy water. It’s not filthy. But, still . . .
I meant to tell either Josue or Leo
that I had a problem but by the time I saw either of them, my shower water backup
had fled my brain.
A few days ago I heard Josue working next door and the
proverbial light bulb flickered. “I think my septic tanks must be full or the
drain-field saturated with all the rain.” I described the symptoms of my
problem and Josue agreed to check the tanks the following day.
Meanwhile I spent a sleepless night worrying that I would
have to replace the entire septic system and drain-field, more money flushed
away. Why not? I’ve had to replace everything else in and around and connected
with my house, except that and my refrigerator.
The refrigerator sounds like a 747 sitting on the runway,
revving engines for take-off. I’ve already scouted out the new models in town.
So it was an easy stretch of my elastic imagination to
suppose I’d be faced with a major septic mess.
And with company coming too. I have a friend arriving for a
week’s rest and relaxation. I imagined both of us holed up in adjoining rooms
in the hotel, eating all our meals at the nearest taco joint.
Josue dug up the septic tanks. Sure enough, both are full. It
took a day to locate a sewage pump truck from a neighboring town. “He’ll come
tomorrow after he finishes a job south of here.”
It rained. All night and half the day. The man with the pump
truck never showed up. The next day was Sunday. Sunday is family and church
day. Nobody works. Monday he came and looked at it. “Yep, needs to be
pumped.”
Meanwhile, belatedly, I began thinking. It’s only the shower
that drains slowly. The kitchen sink is fine. The toilet flushes like a
trooper. When the men laid new tile in the bathroom, they snagged a bucket
(literally) of old hair out of the shower drain pipe. Suppose they loosened
enough hairs that a gob fell back and clogged the small opening through the
mesh. The men hadn’t cleaned the whole drain pipe, just what they could reach.
Leo told me, “Yvonne was ill. She lost hair by handfuls.”
Lani added, “She had long hair.”
Eventually the sun will shine. Wednesday the pumper guy with
truck and tank arrived. Today Josue will snake out the shower drain pipe and
remove the rest of the tangled mess. As long as the pipes are exposed, he’ll also
make sure the drain-field pipe is clear of debris.
Again, the sky rained all night. Rained
until noon. My back yard looks like a lagoon. The weather forecast for the week
ahead is sunny skies, same as the forecast for the week behind.
In my next life I’m going to be a
meteorologist. I’ve studied on a different method for predicting. Instead of
throwing darts at a board, I’ll walk out my door. If the sun is shining, I’ll
say, “Rain is on the way.” If I get wet, I’ll say, “Sunshine soon.” It’s all in
the timing.
Between the now and the then of this
life and my next life, I’ll try to locate the sky faucets.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
October 6,
2016
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