View From the Bushes

I hate being a home-owner. I just don't think I'm cut out for it. It seems like owning a home is the equivalent of having another part-time job, but instead of getting paid you end up paying in, which might not be so bad if it was just 5 bucks an hour or something like that, but no! Adding insult to injury, the amount of money you have to pay in seems to be determined in some kind of hideous parody of the Wheel of Fortune. Sometimes it's ten dollars for some lightbulbs and other times it's thousands of dollars for some hideous air-conditioning repair, or hundreds of dollars for a plumbing disaster. Such was the case today...

My wife called sometime around ten this morning to tell me that somehow (at this point the DK's (and I'm not talking about Dire Kobolds) are the prime suspects) the main sewer line running from the upstairs to the downstairs became clogged, causing toilets to overflow, bathtubs not to drain and eventually resulting in a flood of crap water (literally) to burst forth and begin flooding the basement. My immediate response was to call a professional. I find that one of the keys to effective leadership is to immediately realize when you're out matched. Of course, Roto-Rooter couldn't be there until five so we called some local plumbers and they were there within the hour, but they ended up wanting 700+ dollars to do the job. Of course I said go ahead, I mean what are you going to do when you've got floaters in the basement? And of course you have to wonder if they know that they have you over a barrel?

In any case, that's the excitement (in the Chinese curse, "May you live in exciting/interesting times" sense) for today. Hopefully the rest of my day will not be spent cleaning the basement, weeping for my lost innocence and cursing the great-great-granchildren of everyone who told me to buy a home, but then again it may...

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross