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Last winter, right before Christmas, I was trying to soothe my frozen shoulder (another story) with an Epsom salt bath. When the tub drained in our second floor bathroom, the tub in the first floor bathroom filled with water.

“Must be the salts,” I thought.

We called the plumber who performed a thorough diagnostic. He had “bad news.”

Water was backing up into the house from our sewer line connecting us to the street — meaning our sewer line is collapsed. The water has no where to go, so it backs up into the lowest point in the house.

As far as I was concerned, the fact that it was only water backing up into the tub — and not sewage — was really pretty awesome.

Yes, we had a problem. Yes, it was going to be expensive to fix, but I was very grateful for what wasn’t happening … a veritable indoor shit storm at Christmas. Continue reading →