What am I pointing to in the picture above you ask? It’s a small nail brush. You can see a close-up below. How did the brush get there? A great question. The following event took place some time in 2004.

Eve used to keep that brush on top of the downstairs toilet next to the sink. One day we opened the door to my basement and saw it had about 2 feet of water in it (it’s an unfinished basement).

There was poo poo and toilet paper floating everywhere. Lots of poo, I may add. My septic line must have been clogged for 2 or 3 days before we noticed. My drain line had a separate feed from my basement floor to drain my water softener (this has since been changed). Something clogged the main line which caused the poo poo to back flow into the basement. Obviously we had to call a plumber who had to snake the system. We had to dig up the hatch for the septic tank to do it. When the clog finally broke we saw what caused the blockage. It was that brush you see below. My youngest, Jonah, who was 2 at the time, flushed it down the toilet.

 I pulled it out, wearing gloves obviously, from the septic tank. I rinsed it off and put it in my garage. It will be the gift I give him when his first child is born.

But this is only half the story. About a week later we opened the door to the basement and once again we had a foot or more of water, along with more poo poo and toilet paper, floating as well. WHAT HAPPENED? 2 year old Jonah claimed innocence but I thought about water boarding him to verify.

Once again we had to dig up the hatch, call the plumber, snake it, etc …. What caused the blockage this time? Out came a chunk of dry laundry detergent that was bigger than a softball. My grandma, who lived in the house till 1990 always used dry detergent (“it’s cheaper my darling” she would say) and it congealed and stuck to the inner pipes. The brush evidently functioned as a crude form of angioplasty that cleared the line of the clump of detergent. 

Thanks Jonah, for causing our basement to flood with water and poo-poo twice.