Minding my own business, or at least attempting to with a plethora of distractions and a pending meeting and such the sump pump continued to buzz louder and louder at intervals. Until it would not stop its buzzing and closer inspection revealed a burning electrical smell and a burning hot sump pump that had finally given up its ghost.
Laughingly, I called two immediate plumbing options - TonyC and Seneca Plumbing. TonyC was unavailable and Seneca told me they could give me a hand with the sump pump fiasco in December but by then the house would have floated away.
So during the meeting Seneca did call back (shock) and said I had to measure the sump pump - how many hoses, how wide the hose(s), etc.
Measurements happened and I rushed over there.
I spotted a man floating in space holding a toilet seat and told him the woes at hand. He said I do not work here. But, I warbled, you LOOK like you are working, nodding toward the seat.
An x-biker did help and I told him this.
One hose, 4 and three quarters, as high as my leg.
He looked somewhat dazed.
I looked over their handy sump pump display nearby and discovered the leg-sized sump pump is basically a piece of unsuitable crap meant for the occasional sump pumper, not an everyday user.
The new sump pump is three-quarter horse power and I asked the x-biker how fast, were it a motorcycle, the thing would run.
Oh, are you a biker, he queried. This is how Yours Truly learned of his x-status.
No, I said most emphatically. You.
He said Yes and mumbled something when I asked if he'd been in a club.
Oh, is this a SECRET, YT pushed.
He showed off a small tattoo on his arm while saying Chosen Few and answered that this sump pump soon to be in my possession could run seventeen m.p.h.
Not bad, YT thought.
So x-biker hooks up, after my description, a length of p.v.c. pipe about four feet up into the air. After I'd told him a flexible hose is what had been there.
I thought to myself Well, he must know this will work.
I hint at the unfortunate circumstances to follow.
I make a little bed of bricks for the new pump in the well, I put it in atop. I cut some flex host from p.v.c. to p.v.c. that leads to the sewer pipe and plug it in and then witness an enourmous tsunami of brown water shooting out all over the area.
I unplug.
I run for the duct tape.
I tape like there's no sump pump tomorrow and wait and wait for the little 17 m.p.h. machine to work its magic.
Water streams out about three feet from a few spots so I get busy with the duct tape and cover and recover the spots.
Now, when I have a spare hour, I will figure out how to connect these pipes in a more orderly fashion with more pipe, some clamps, some goop, some other do-dads still unknown to YT at this juncture.
This sump pump has a lifetime warranty.
This just oozes confidence that this pump, unlike the other, will not let off periodic troubling noises and smells.
Time to gussy up and head to gig du jour, leaving the plumbing world and all its cares behind. For now.


Plumb Love.

Found myself at some point today standing within a soundproof box, if You will, a sort of portable recording room contraption, out on the muddy campus of Middling City U. Amongst others I was making some portraits of a guy who studies neurological and musical things that he explained well and I will merely paraphrase. He spoke of slip of the finger happenings, like slip of the tongue. He also studies people who cannot sing as well as those with passable karaoke voices by putting them into said booth and having them sing while they hear altered recordings of themselves singing. It was a bit over my head but I offered up my (imPerfect) voice for his study. He said Some people think they have a bad singing voice but really don't.
Oh, Yours Truly replied, believe You me, I heard mine is quite bad. I did not go on to tell him of that one night down at Winnie's with the drunk midget with YT warbling DreamWeaver. I didn't think it was all that bad. Justy had another op.
This researcher of bad singers and such says he'll email me if he needs another under-microscope volunteer.
Onwards then to a photo shoot in one of those dreaded, added-on hospitals which make no sense whatsoever as to which elevator leads to what floor and rooms seemingly numbered randomly by a dyslexic.
So I finally find the sinus/fungi guy in his strewn office and wished I had left a trail of popcorn for myself as I had joked to the helpful lady at the helful desk. Finally the correct door was discovered and I was like so out of this hospital and, while driving down the Avenue, spotted two guys messing around with red plastic sunglasses at the bus stop. I thought Oh, right, Halloween, how utterly silly of them to be putting on those archetypal wacky glasses probably with the mirrored googly eyes.
Wrong.
The one man lifted the red plastic sunglasses off the other guy's face and I nearly fainted behind the wheel, being all bloodsqueamed and all. There was a Perfect Japanese flag underneath where the right eye should have been peeping out. Swoon. Swoon. Onwards then.

Swooning, Love.