Boots

Here’s the story:

My friend Dan, his better half, Amy, and Charlie the Wonder Dog, came to visit me after my wife passed away. To take care of me, which they did, and for which I will ever be grateful.

They elected to stay in the trailer they towed, in the middle of a nasty heat spell, and whose AC demands overloaded any circuit I had in the house, but that’s another funny story.

So, RVs have, the larger ones, onboard waste tanks. One is for kitchen and bathroom sink drainage, and is called the gray water tank. The other is for sewage, and is deemed the black water tank.

Over a period of time, these tanks fill, and must be drained. Dumping one’s tanks is a time-honored ritual known to all RV owners.

Now, normally, this is a simple, easy procedure. One drives to a waste disposal place where this is done, hooks up a large, flexible hose to the outro pipe, sticks the end into an in-ground tank. The black water valve is opened first. When it is done draining, the gray water follows, which cleans out the hose somewhat. Valves closed, the hose is removed, rinsed out — one wears gloves doing this — and stored in a special compartment, and all done.

So, Dan — wearing cowboy boots, this part is important — takes the rig to a drainage site to perform this chore. He hated towing this thing, seriously hated it, and the rig, being semi-sentient, knew this.

Arrives, he, at the site, hooks up the drainage hose, fastens it place, and opens the black water valve. 

But, no rush of black water.

Because the trailer knows he hates it, and has taken umbrage at this.

So Dan, being a DIY kinda guy, says, Oh, no, you don’t, trailer! He figures that perhaps there is a blockage in the black water pipe.

Here’s an idea: I’ll poke a stick up there and dislodge that blockage.

Excuse me, I have to pause here, wait for the laughter to stop, which always takes a while, wipe the tears from my eyes, since I can’t type until this happens.

Okay, okay, I’m good, I -- wait, hold on …

Okay, no, really. I’m can do this.

I am going to skip ahead here, to the part where Dan comes home, enters the house, and Amy and Charlie and I call out: Hey, how’d it go?

Imagine, if you would, a car full of angry, drunken sailors on shore leave who have somehow been accidentally transported to a church full of nuns instead of a house of ill repute at which they thought they were arriving. The language.

Here upon, Dan steps into view. 

Wearing running shoes.

Why, Dan — why are you wearing running shoes? What happened to your boots?

Okay, hold on a second, just a second, I’m okay. This part doesn’t take as long to get it back together.

Whew. 

There is no need to gild the lily here. What happens when a full tank of black water whose drain pipe is blocked suddenly becomes unblocked? 

Ever see one of those old movies where the drillers strike oil and a gusher of it spews fifty feet into the air and rains down upon the crew, who are smiling because now they are rich?

Leave out the smile-we’re-rich! part, add in the drunken, angry sailors. And Dan.

Stir.

That. That is how it went.