The Catch Basin on Wellington

After a few months of home ownership, I discovered that my shower and sinks wouldn't drain properly. My brother the plumber came over and diagnosed the problem as a full 'catch basin'. He took me out into my backyard and pointed at what looked like a little sewer. "There, that's your problem. We have to clean that out." A catch basin is a large tank that is placed underground in your drain line to the sewer. The purpose of it is to catch all the crap that is flushed down the drain that the city doesn't want in their sewer. Now the proper way to clean out this tank is to bring in a truck with a pump and suck all the gunk out into their tank, which they then take away and out of your life. What we did was to get two fifty five gallon drums, then take buckets to scoop out the slop, fill the drums with the slop, and then roll them out to the alley for the garbage men to pick up. One interesting thing we found out is that the people who lived in this house before me ate large quantities of SpaghettiOs®. It wasn't just a few SpaghettiOs® floating on top of the slop. No, almost all of the waste in the catch basin consisted of SpaghettiOs®. We proceeded to fill one drum with the slop/SpaghettiOs® and managed to get it out to the alley. It was when we were trying to wrestle the second drum, heavy with slop/SpaghettiOs® out to the alley that it all went wrong. As my brother and I pushed and pulled the drum towards the alley, one of us got out of sync. The slop sloshed against the side of the drum like a wave against the shore, and flew straight up and out at me. It happened so fast that I didn't have time to cover my face or even close my eyes. In seconds I was tasting the SpaghettiOs® of the previous residents. It was all over me, in my hair, on my clothes, in my face. I stood there screaming in disgust, with slop and SpaghettiOs® dripping off me. To this day, the sight of a can of SpaghettiOs® will trigger my gag reflex. 

The Backyard on Wellington