Tales of the Spud Truck
Caution: Those easily offended by crappy subject matter can skip this one!
There is NOTHING WORSE than the stench of poop that permeates the air while some honey dipper is going to town on a nearby septic tank. Holy crap! Stench is actually an understatement. The smell is really undescribable. Ripe hot garbage comes to mind… but then, even that seems tame. During a recent snow and ice storm here in lovely northern New Jersey I had the distinct displeasure of happening by said spud-sucker as it extracted excrement from the subterranean cesspool of a nearby office building. What are we eating for lunch people?
So I drove on passed the septic truck, but didn’t notice any funny bumper stickers. Have you ever had the opportunity to pull up behind one at a traffic light and read a humorous slogan on a sign or bumper sticker on the rear of the truck? I recall a couple. One slogan I spotted said, “We’re #1 in a #2 business!” Another, “We will return your product if you are not completely satisfied with our service.”
I saw one during a web search while I was writing this and it’s slogan was, “Caution: Vehicle may be Transporting Political Promises!” The license plate? “POO PMPR.” Ah those septic guys, what a fun bunch.
All this talk about septic pumping reminds me of my days working at a local camping area where some residents spent the entire year living in their double-wide trailers. Back in October of 2002 I wrote a piece about an old friend named Jon that I used to play music with, you can read that one here.
Anyway, Jon and I worked together at this place called Tall Timbers in Sussex County, New Jersey. I think we were there for a summer or two, can’t remember now. Anyway, the crew supervisor called Jon “Long-Tall-Sally” because of his tall, 6 foot 4 inch frame. Jon was a tall guy and in great shape, chicks loved him. Anyway, we were best buds back in the day, and often were paired for certain jobs since we got along so well and got the job done without a hitch. Most of the time…
Every Friday our supervisor would hand out the duties for the first part of the day. As he rattled off the details, anyone who’s name was called for a particular job became more and more nervous. See, the last task to be assigned was always Spud Duty. If you were called for Spud Duty you were handed a list of trailers that needed to have the septic tank pumped out. Not the best job.
There was an old Dodge Power wagon with a pump tank trailer hooked up to the back. Jon and I had Spud Duty a couple of times during our stint at Tall Timbers, and I remember one good story that Jon related, and we had a close-call on one of our own spud duty adventures.
I’ll relate ours first. Jon was manning the pump hose and had plopped it into a septic tank, with his foot on the hose to keep it in the tank. I sat on the top of the receiving tank with the drain hose hanging into it and my hand at the ready on the pump switch. Jon yells the okay and I turn on the pump.
Now, you have to keep a good grip on this pump hose so it doesn’t fly out of your hand, because there is a great forward and back jerking motion caused by the action of the pump. Well, this particular day I guess I must have relaxed my grip a little too much, for the hose bucked loose, popped out of the tank and began spurting poop into the air.
I quickly tried to recover the hose, getting slop on my shoes in the process, and the whole time Jon is busting a gut, literally doubled over, laughing hysterically with his hands on his belly, from a safe distance away. I think it took him a half hour to dry his eyes. I wasn’t laughing, until he told me about a similar mishap which befell one of our co-workers, Bucky, who was assigned to spud duty with Jon a year before.
Hearing this story made me feel better, especially since I was able to clean my boots up with a blast of water from a garden hose. Bucky wasn’t so lucky. I got poop on my boots, but Bucky… let’s just say, Bucky had to go home and take a shower.
Ah, fond memories from bygone days. I do miss the good times I had, and the making of those fond memories. Just reminds me that we have many more days of memory-making to look forward to. So on with it!
I’m sure I’ll have something a bit more pleasant to say before Christmas is here. Until then, I hope the air you breathe is crisp, clean and free of fetid fumes. That’s all for now.
