A few years ago I bought the house my children and I currently live in.  It’s a really nice two story home right on a corner lot. Although it has a full basement, it’s really not one I could finish without pouring a new foundation. The house is over a hundred years old and at least one basement wall looks like the original stone. Whenever it rained it wasn’t unusual to see trickles of water seeping in. But it was still a beautiful home, so I bought it.

Shortly after moving in we had a huge rainstorm. The river was flooding, roads were flooded over, and it seemed even the drains outside were getting plugged. Since I already knew the one wall leaked I thought I had better check to see if water was pooling in the basement.

When I opened the basement door I was in shock. It was like a fucking lake in my basement. Not even kidding. The water was at least a foot and a half high and the rain still hadn’t stopped. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. It was the weekend, I’m a single mother and I didn’t want to call a plumber out on a Sunday till I knew exactly what was going on. So I called one of my friends and she said she’d see if her dad could come over.

Her dad showed up with wading boots and went down in the basement to take a look. My older son, who was about 14 at the time, decided he wanted to go with him.  Zach took his shoes and socks off, rolled up his pants to about his knees and followed. My younger son and I sat on the basement steps about half way down so we could see what was going on. After a few minutes her dad said it looked like the drain was backing up.

All of a sudden Conrad shouts, “IT’S POOP! IT’S POOP! LOOK IT’S POOP!” We all look down into the water and sure enough, there was turds floating around. Not just shit either. Toilet paper, tampons, shit, any fucking thing you can imagine that people flush down the toilet.

Now her dad was wearing boots but my son was barefoot so I shout, “ZACH! GET OUT OF THE WATER THAT’S RAW SEWAGE!” My fucking son looks down at the water and shit surrounding his legs, shrugs his shoulders and goes, “Eh”.  If I would have had the ability to walk on water I would have snatched that fucking kid up. As it was he was out of my reach and didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by the fact that my basement was now holding the shit for my fucking block.

My friend’s dad told me I would have to call a plumber and that the rain and flooding had caused the sewage line to back up into my basement.  He also told me not to use any water, no flushing toilet, showers, etc., since everything going down my pipes was just ending up in my basement. I thanked him and he left.

Then I turned to my son and told him to get his ass in the bathroom and I turned on the water almost to scalding and made him scrub his feet till they were raw. The whole time he’s saying, “But he said not to run any water!?” My response, “Fuck that! You were standing in raw sewage. Zach that’s people shit! We don’t even know whose shit! You’ll be lucky if you don’t get some damn disease!!!!!” After scrubbing his feet I also made him clip his toe nails as short as he could get. The kid is lucky I didn’t also make him pour bleach on his feet. But I thought that might be a little too “mommy dearest” of me.

The next day the rain had stopped and the water outside had starting to recede. A plumber came and took care of my basement. Then a friend came and scrubbed the whole basement floor with bleach. I have never had flooding like that since them. But I tell you what; every time there’s a heavy rain I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. If the boys aren’t home I’ll wait until they get there and make one of them go check the basement.  I don’t think I could handle seeing that lake of shit again.