Guard dog Happy telling me to "Stay Grounded!"

Okay, time for a little humor.  Just for chuckles for your reading enjoyment—or disgust.

The Sewer Stench Saga

            NEWS FLASH:  All across the Great state of North Dakota households and businesses are smitten with the same malady!  An odiferous, foul stench is seeping in the cracks, seams and crevices of houses everywhere, whether in cities, on farms, in small towns or remote rural areas.  Folks, we are nearing a state of emergency!

            As quoted from one women living in the sticks in western North Dakota, “I woke up in the morning with my nose just a twitching.  I sniffed and sniffed again, then wished I hadn’t.  Stunk to High Heaven!  For a minute there thought my hubby had died and gone to High Heaven.”

            “Woke me up in the middle of the night,” reports a farm wife, “sat straight up in bed.  Checked under my pillow for a dead mouse.”

            “I followed my nose to the back porch,” says the woman from in the sticks, “when I opened the door I was almost knocked off my feet by the reeking, fetid emanation emanating from the sewer vent pipe.”

            So there you have it folks, the affliction that is affecting all of North Dakota.  The rank foulness of an offensive malodorous fetor.  The very rankness of the offensive, putrid sewer stench filling the houses of North Dakota. 

            What is to be done about this horrible problem?  What can folks hope to do to eradicate this infirmity?  A local radio program gave some well researched, technical advice on the elimination of the rotten aroma filling many houses this winter.

1. Whack the vent pipe with a stick, thus knocking the ice out
2. Climb up on your roof and pour hot water down the vent pipe.  This is not advisable since no. 1 could be hazardous to your health due to a slick roof and  no. 2 once hot water is poured down the vent pipe, ice will more readily form, for what ever mysterious reason.             

            To better understand this problem and it’s affects on the life styles of fellow North Dakotans, we braved blinding snow, frigid temperatures, wild winds, deep drifts and vicious animals (in the form of Pheasants lined on the sides of the road ready to peck our tires) risking life, limb and vehicle to interview a woman living way-in-the-heck-and-gone, in the middle of nowhere, in what is often referred to (by non-locals) as a chicken coup.  Translated: “a small ramshackle house, with obvious add-ons, tilting this way and that and looking like a strong wind may blow it smack over, when in actuality it has stood firm in thousands of gale force winds, against deep snow drifts and in fierce rain, hail and sleet for the hundred years it has been shelter against the storms for hard working folks.”

            Following is the amazing story that we heard with our own ears and was witnessed, in part, by the eyes of our own brave reporter, as told by Wendy Kleker of Garner Creek, North Dakota:

            Well I get to smelling a stench, it has this certain dead-mouse-like smell, you see, and I follow it to the back porch.  In opening the door I’m hit full in the face by the foulness.  My eyes water and my mouth puckers and my nose scrunches.  “It’s time.” I say and don my snow pants, boots, hat, parka and gloves for my venture up into the great, wild blue yonder.

            Once out on the back porch with my purex jug of hot water I look behind me and notice the reporter feller passed out from the awful stench.  Had to drag him outside to revive him before I could accomplish my mission.  These city folks just don’t have the constitution for this kind of thing. 

            So anyway once the reporter is revived and although looking a bit groggy, tips his head back, and shields his eyes to watch my brave climb into the sky on the ladder that is tied to the side of the house so it won’t slide sideways down the eves.

            With the wind whipping, for you see these things always happens in gale force winds and freezing temperatures, I clutch the purex jug in one gloved hand and climb the ladder, one rung at a slow time, until I am perched far above the ground at the top of the ladder clinging with one arm around the sewer vent pipe. The wind whistles and tears at my clothes and threatens to blow me off my precarious perch. 

            The vent pipe has an elbow on the top to keep the wind from blowing down it, which only works when the wind is not blowing.  Actually when it is blowing in the right direction.  When the wind switches directions the elbow must be moved also.  Since I have not figured out a way to do this remotely, I have to climb the ladder and turn the elbow every time the wind switches directions, which can be several times in one day or possibly in one hour.

            However at this time the vent pipe is iced up, the common cause of the odiferous aroma leaking into houses all over this wonderful state, according to the misled, misunderstood, or misinformed media.  Happens when it’s cold, usually below freezing and about once a day I must perform my administrations.  The elbow is frozen on so I pour hot water over the elbow as the wind blows much of it in my face on my hands and soaks my coat sleeve.  I hope my glasses don’t freeze since then it would be difficult to see where to pour the water.  I tap on the elbow, which is full of ice to knock it loose then lift it off.  All the time clinging to the ladder for dear life.  Then while hanging onto the elbow with one hand and fighting to stay aloft in the strong winds that buffet my body, I pour the rest of the water down the vent to melt the ice that blocks the pipe.             

            This is usually done in accompaniment to Happy, my fierce guard dog, barking his head off.  He barks from the moment I touch the ladder to climb until my foot comes off the last rung at the bottom.  I wonder what message he is trying to get across.  That I am plumb nuts, have really lost the cookie, flipped the pancake, smoked my goose.  Maybe he’s telling me it’s plumb dangerous, not a good idea, shouldn’t go there, you’re walking on thin ice, or rather climbing the BIG one. Could be he’s saying, “If you think I’m going up there to protect you, you’re for sure barking up the wrong tree!”

            However, today Mr. Reporter fella is down there (Happy being safely tied up to the shed is barking and frothing at the mouth to get to the fiend who is threatening his mistress. Or maybe he’s growing and drooling to get to his mistress for tying him to the shed.) Anyway this city dweller, reporter fellow is standing at a safe distance (I’m not sure if to be safe in case I fall or to be out of the downdraft from the sewer stench) still peering up at me from under shielded eyes. 

            I often wonder what would happen if the ladder should slip, which could only happen if the rope which ties it to the house would break or the ancient siding on the house should pull loose, and I would be left dangling from the vent pipe.  Of course in the event that this should happen I am technologically prepared to the max and always carry my cell phone, which I have zippered safely in the pocket of my snow pants so it won’t fall into the snow drift below the ladder.  Also in case the ladder should careen down the eve of the house, I always keep one arm securely locked, or in this case frozen, around the vent pipe.  So there I would be clinging to the pipe, legs dangling over the eve, yelling my head off, which would do no good since the nearest neighbor is almost two miles away and Happy’s barking would surely drown out my desperate cries for help.  So there I’d be flapping in the wind on the eves way above the ground, at least 10 feet or so, and trying vainly with one hand to dig my cell phone out of my carefully zippered pocket.  And in the event I should get it out, while the fierce wind buffets my waving body, I fumble with the buttons to locate a phone number and push send if I am so lucky to see it. Then when I manage to slide the phone under my parka hood and ear muffs to my ear, I part my frozen stiff lips and mumble as clearly as I can possibly manage, “Rick (all names are of course changed to protect the innocent) do you think you could send someone out here?  I’m kinda at the end of my rope.  Literally on the roof top, eves dropping you might say, about to take a header.  Actually in over my head, hangin’ in there, holdin’ on fer dear life.  You could say in a precarious, jeopardous, chancy, ticklish, risky, unhealthy and dire situation.  In other words HELP!” 

            Okay back to the story at hand–When I have all the water, all of it that did not end up in my face, poured down the vent, I drop the now empty purex jug thinking it would drop straight to the ground.  Now I’ve been in North Dakota over a year so I should know that nothing short of an iron ball drops straight to the ground.  The jug being carried on the wind wings east and smacks the reporter fella smack-dab in the face. 

            “OH!” he cries as he staggers back a few steps.

            “OH!” I cry grabbing the sewer vent as I jerk my head around, “Sorry ab—“  just then the full-of-ice-elbow slips out of my  hand that was locked onto the ladder, careens down the roof, bounces off the dormer below, ricochets from the edge of the eve and whacks with a loud THUD, on the very top of the reporters head.

            “Ahhh,” he mumbles, as he crumples to the ground.

            I wince and carefully feel my way down the ladder.  I say feel cuz my glasses are by this time pretty much iced over.  However, I am able, after a careful search of the surrounding drifts, to find the elbow, much to my relief.  I then preceded into the house to not only de-ice the elbow, but also remove the layers of ice from my glasses.  This is accomplished after the sleeve of my coat thaws enough that I am able to straighten my arm from the bent position it was in when clinging to the sewer vent. 

            With this all done I venture once again, into the sky to accomplish the second part of my mission, which is, of course, putting the elbow back on the pipe and positioning it in just the right place so the wind will not blow down the pipe and fill the house full of putridness.  I call this the “Sweet Spot”.  One never knows where that spot is until one has first computed the direction of the wind.  Which is accomplished by pulling ones glove off with ones teeth, then sticking ones finger into ones mouth, then pointing that finger to the sky.  This complicated procedure simply concurs that the side of the finger that freezes first is the direction the wind is coming from. 

            Therefore, with the wind direction carefully calculated I rotate the elbow to the sweet spot.  Then I make my slow descent down the before-stated-hazardous ladder.  By the time my feet touch the snow banks below, the a-for-mentioned reporter is stirring, which I’m glad to see since if he hadn’t come to life, I wasn’t sure what I’d have done with him since the ground is way too frozen to burry a body at this time. 

            So I was a bit relieved when said body moved and a long groan escaped the poor fellows blue lips. I was also relieved to smell no stench when I helped the groggy guy through the porch.  I wasn’t too sure I could handle him passing out again.  I have just poured the befuddled fellow a cup of reviving coffee when a malodorous, noisome odor sifts its way to my wrinkling nose. 

            “Oh, oh,” I expel disgustedly.

            “What?” the reporter gasps, sounding rather panicked.  “What’s happened now?”

            “Wind’s changed,” I sigh, “Gotta go back up the ladder and find the new sweet spot.”

            “Oh my!”  The reporter exclaims, as his eyes grow wide and his chest heaves with gasping breaths.  Very quickly he gathers his equipment and while mumbling something about having to get back to the office he rushes out the door, jumps in his rig and roars through the drifts with snow flying in his wake.

            “Well I never!” I exclaim, as I make my way through the once again fetid-foul-rank-reeking back porch.

The "Chicken Coup"

Notice vent pipe complete with ladder in back!