Tag: demolition

Lazarus The Slayer of The Septic Roots

The other Day as I’m enjoying my coffee along with some Bong hits when I was informed by one of the Kiddies (a semi “affectionate” nickname I have bestowed upon our 3 Interns. Our Part Time Staff of 2, and Our 2 Full Time Employees  are referred to as the Children) informed me We apparently had a rather sudden plumbing issue. When I asked what seemed to be the particular plumbing problem was per say I was informed the Toilets were filling BUT NOT Flushing. In addition the damned Dishwasher, and the washed up clothes Washer both decided to start spouting spurts of water from the valves on the their respective walls.

This was symptomatic of 1 of 2 most possible scenarios. The First is the Main Drain was Clogged, and the Second would be an issue with The Building’s Septic System. I called our Contractor Jamison who referred me to his Plumbing Guy Lazarus Riggs who I called immediately. I had to leave a message which seriously aggravated the shit out of me as I hate waiting for anything especially if its an emergency/Immediate attention. Lazarus did call back though in a prompt and timely manner. I told Lazarus what was going on and he graciously said He’d swing by shortly and check the septic situation out (though it was raining like a motherufcker, and had been for the past 2 days, and Lazarus mentioned during our phone call that he “Didn’t particularly like getting Wet.”)

When Lazarus arrived I realized there was the minor issue of I had no damn idea where the fuck the Septic Tank actually was (We bought the Building from The Bank so not like they gave us blue prints and shit) So Lazarus armed with a 5 foot long solid steel Pry Bar deal (it looks like a giant Railroad Spike), and with it he proceeded to wonder around in suspect areas spearing the ground as He went like some Norse Viking Warrior trying to Impale Satan Himself. After searching for more than several minutes Lazarus’s mighty Steel Staff hit a Solid spot that wasn’t a Rock. Lazarus then started to feel out the perimeter of what he believed whole heartedly was the Septic Tank.

While Lazarus was working on that I mentioned that putting the Septic Tank on the side of the Building that had the most fucking Trees was a monumentally Moronic move to which Lazarus agreed. When Lazarus finally uncovered enough of the outline to the Septic Tank outlined We ran into yet another issue. Instead of building the Septic Tank vertically or Horizontally they built it on a fucking 45 degree angle diagonally. What made this plumbing abomination even more insanely idiotic was by choosing to to build the Septic Tank that was that two thirds of the actual Septic Tank was buried under a set of exterior stairs leading off the huge as hell Front Porch.

As my face quickly spiraled from slightly flushed with insurmountable irritation to borderline maroon with out of control Anger Lazarus told me we might not yet be totally screwed. As it were there were two types of Septic Tank lids one thats a simple cap that can be popped open to inspect the Septic Tank, and the other type was a Slab cover which sounds exactly like what it is. If there was a Cap Top we’d be fine and if not then it was back to the drawing board as those who like cliches would say. Unfortunately as you might imagine (as our regular readers are aware of things here always seem to go bizarrely) it wasn’t a Cap Top but the Shitty Slab Top variety.

I then asked Lazarus to hold on a minute which he was glad to do as I gave my Wife (who was at work) a call to report that We found the Septic Tank, its ridiculous location and asinine positioning as well as the dueling cap issue at hand. I did this as a curtesy because the last goddamn thing I need is my Wife coming home and seeing a pile of wood and shit because then she’d wonder what the fuck her impulsive Husband was or had been up to in her absence. She of course agreed we had to do whatever it was we had to do because leaking appliances and un-flushable toilets were un-fucking acceptable. I returned to tell Lazarus I would be right back as I was retreaving some additional tools from the garage out back to assist us in dismantling the exterior staircase. In the end all it took was Lazarus on one side with his bad ass Steel Bar and I on the other opposing side armed with a  10 pound Sledge Hammer to quickly abolish the stairs completely.

Lazarus uncovered the rest of the Slab Top and started to pry it off like some Asshole Indiana Jones loving Archeologist on a History Channel Special on the opening of some far forgotten King/Queen/Emperor’s long lost Tomb. At this point I was freaking the fuck out because I was utterly convinced the Septic Tank was completely and totally compromised, and would have to be replaced due to extensive Root Damage (to the tune of $7,000). Luckily it wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. The pipe that emptied from the Building into the Septic Tank itself was chocked up like a son of a bitch with goddamn Roots. There was also a MASSIVE ball of Roots like a cancerous Septic Tank Tumor further complicating things as it were.

Lazarus started the laborious and strenuous job of removing the Root Tumor if you will using a Hatchet, a pair of Tree Limb Cutters, a Hand Saw and a sharply nosed Shovel. I started to stack the pieces of the obliterated stairs trying desperately not to get scratched or punchered on one of the seemly hundreds of rusty old ass nails that stuck out of the wood like a metal Porcupine’s quills. Lazarus succeeded in removing all of the Big Ass Root Tumor entirely, though he did have a few doubts along the way, and he managed to unclog the Pipe.

I thanked Lazarus for all of his help and expertise, and he charged me $100 for 2 hours of labor in the rain (Can’t beat Southern Country Prices). I called my Wife to give her the all clear, and headed off to my Art Studio to continue work ing on a current Sculpture Project. We have absolutely no plans whatsoever to replace/build the Exterior Stairs obviously as not to block the top of the Septic Tank (it doesn’t functionally matter as the stairs were a secondary set more for aesthetics than use). We have also administered a Yearly Root Killer, and a Septic Tank Shit Sludge maintenance as temporary measures, but ultimately the Trees have to go and the sooner the fucking better to avoid a Serious Septic Situation.

Thanks For Reading,

Les Sober 

The Tale of the Small Town MothMan Mural

When We moved from the Southern Swamp to the Southern Country one of the advantages of the move was there were several structures located out back behind our new home offices. There was a large one car garage which We unceremoniously designated for the usual trivial shit like  Lawn Mowers, Various garden tools, Paint cans, and for a few months 2 large puppies (who now have their own Dog House complete with Heater and Air Conditioning)

The second structure was a run of the mill silver, 10 foot high, 20 foot long, 8 foot wide, sheet metal shed supported by an internal  basic wooden frame. When We purchased the property the shithead previous owners failed to give us among many other things the keys to unlock said shed. We could see through the 4 small windows (2 per side) and do a very general assessment. From what we could see the only real issue other than getting a new lock was the plywood floor was rotten in 2 separate places and would need patching.

Once We got the shed lock changed and were able to enter the structure things looked as if the shed was worser for the wear than We had anticipated. Even if it needed more TLC than We thought it was still a viable option to be My Art Studio (Yes I paint and Draw in a variety of various mediums such as CharCoal or Oil Paints. I have recently decided that it is at this point in my life I will be pursuing Sculpting as creating a 3 dimensional project is going to be fucking awesome and intense.) The first thing I did was load it up with all my various art supplies (Canvases, Paints, Brushes, Assortment of Project Materials etc.), but the floor fix would take time, and I have NO PATIENCE, NON AT ALL. Its A Virtue I was born without and I’m totally fucking fine with that.

It took less than a day before I was wallowing in frustrated boredom and thought to myself that if I couldn’t currently use the shed I could still in the mean time decorate the outside. I drove to the local hardware store in the neighboring town and loaded up on Spray Paint big time. I had no idea what I was going to Paint on the side of the shed so first I selected which side I would do first. The rightsize of the shed made a small alleyway between it and the garage so space to work was limited. The same was true of the back of the shed even more so as our fence came in even closer proximity than the garaged and the sheds right wall. That left me with the choice of either the front or the left side of the shed to choose from. I chose the left side since it was bigger and had the best area in which to work.

I walked around the to the left side of the shed and stood there just looking at the shed without a thought in my mind waiting. It didn’t take long before an idea popped into my head MOTHMEN/MOTHMAN. Now before the first fool blurts out how much they loved the movie “The Mothman Prophecies” shut the fuck up. True it was a some what decent movie, but the Mothman is not solely limited to the Point Pleasant, West Virginia 1967 Silver Bridge Collapse that killed 46 people. The Mothman or Mothmen if you will have been seen in different areas before an impending disaster strikes such places as Chernobyl circling Reactor 4, before 9/11 in New York City, The I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Swine Flue Outbreak in Mexico in 2009 for instance.

Now I don’t claim to believe or not believe in such things as UFO’s, Ghost’s, Monsters or Cryptozoology but it all fun food for thought because who actually knows, and all I’m saying is I don’t know. What I do know is I utterly LOVE UNDERDOGS and to me the Mothman is just that, The Underdog of Cryptozoology. The main debate surrounding the Mothman is simply this is the Mothman coming and bringing death/doom/disaster with it OR is the Mothman a supernatural being/creature that comes to WARN US of immediate impending danger?! I hold with the latter of the two believes myself. It all added up to a quick decision that the mural I’d Spray Paint on the side of the shed would be The Mothman. (Yet myths, legends and lore interest me to no end ever fueling the fires of my undying curiosity.)

I should take a moment to add that the left side of the shed faced the street in a small neighborhood in a tiny town located along the Bible Belt. For this reason and this reason alone I wrote “Mothman” across its chest because while the Mothman was enough to turn many a head I didn’t want (nor need for that matter) for the locals to think the new guy was painting Devils or Demons on the side of his shed.

In a few days the Mothman was finished and I decided the silver background was fucking up my visual of the Mothman. I thought about background colors to use (My wife suggested blue and I should have listened, but I was thinking Navy Blue not say Sky Blue) and some how I chose Orange. On top of using Orange for the background I used a VERY DEEP AND INTENSE shade only to realize when it was all said and done the Orange background made it look more demonic than I’d liked or intended. I didn’t want to change the mural so Mothman with Orange background and all remained vigilantly watching the passerby on the road for months.

Unfortunately upon a proper inspection of the shed, the shed was found to be structurally unsound. The floor was completely shot and would need total replacement. The supporting wood infrastructure was compromised beyond belief. This was apparently due to the fact the previous owner had tried to wire up the shed with electricity themselves and fucked it up causing a fucking fire. The fire had burned a majority of the roof supports right through so if you tapped on them with a hammer they disintegrated.

I called my contractor and informed him that the shed was shot and I’d need his help tearing it down so as We could replace it. 3 or4 days later my contractor showed up with a small handful of workers who set off demolishing the rickety old shed. It only took them a few mere hours to reduce the standing structure into piles of scrap.

That evening I was talking on the phone to my Brother in the Great Northern New Yonder and he asked what was new. I told him about the failing inspection of the doomed shed and that it had been torn down and hauled off. I also told him that for a split second I thought about asking my contractor if the Mothman Mural could be salvaged, but in the end I just let it go. My Brother started laughing, not in an at me type manner, but a “He hasn’t figured it out yet” kind of way. Once he paused to catch his breath I asked him what he found so fucking amusing about the whole ordeal?! I had spent all the time and effort to paint the Mothman mural just to have it crushed and carted away in the end.  He responded by saying that if I believed the Mothman was a Warning of impending danger, then painted one on the side of the shed, and then ultimately the shed met its demise then it followed my Mothman belief to a tee.

I couldn’t help laughing because he was dead right. A dilapidated shed, a Mothman Mural painted upon it, and 4 moths later the shed and the mural are gone having been destroyed in the dismantling process.

 

Thanks For Das Read,

Les Sober