Scott Gill's Blog - Posts Tagged "simplicity"
The Lesson of the Poopie Chair
With camp set and the steaks sizzling on the Coleman stove, it was time to relax and survey our work. We’d spent the better part of an hour of unloading the truck, erecting the tent, and lighting the fire. But there was one more important thing left.
“Dad, when you gotta ‘go’ where do we ‘go’?”
I knew what Brennen meant, but I was surprised he just didn’t take the liberty and head behind a tree (that’s what they do at home).
“No, Dad, we mean ‘GO’” Aidan emphasized.
I got the message.
“Oh, the campground has a restroom just about hundred yards that way.”
They took off in the direction I pointed while I finished searing sirloin. In less than 5 minutes they returned, rummaging in the back of the pickup. They pulled out a broken camping chair, opened it, and took a knife to the canvas seat, cutting a hole in the middle.
“Dad, the restroom was nasty, so check it out … the poopie chair.”
And they tromped down the bluff just out of sight and constructed a sportsman’ paradise. The chair overlooked a deep valley and was equipped with a branch to hold a roll of toilet paper. A shovel leaned against a nearby tree to cover “it” and dig another hole. There was no worry of clogs and missing plungers, just the small issue of a wayward hiker or curious creature. A nighttime run could also pose an issue if you’d grown up on movies like Friday the 13th, but otherwise, their idea served its purpose and was probably a lot more sanitary than the campground Turkish bathhouse.
Fast forward a month later.
While enjoying a meal before one of our favorite Sunday night shows, a rumbling echoed through our walls; the pipes groaned and shook. Water trickled from the faucet and I tore through the closets and cabinets to locate the burst. Dreading a late night crawl under the house, I finally gave in and grabbed the flashlight. A water park had opened in our crawlspace as “the leak” sprayed like an open hydrant.
The plumber’s words were as follows:
Well, you got three things going on down there. You got copper, PVC, and this old galvanized pipe (probably the main line) they don’t even allow anymore. I’m gonna shoot air through the pipes (the water had been turned off), and if the burst is the copper or PVC, no problem, fixed in an hour. If it’s that old galvanized pipe, you’re screwed.
I was screwed.
Three days, $4500 dollars, a tag from the city, and what looked like a mole trail through my driveway, and we moved back in our house.
Only to have our water heater go out a few weeks after.
Now, a new conversation with a plumber:
The city has changed its codes, real strict. You can’t have a gas water heater inside. You gotta cap the gas and run a 220 for electric, have a special drain out the bottom of your house connecting to the sewer line. That is, unless you wanna build a garage.
And then I could see where that conversation would go because our neighborhood has a certain requirement for garages and sheds, where they’re built and what they are made of.
That poopie chair looked better at every moment.
Have you noticed that as our society grows quicker, easier, and more comfortable, it has actually become incredibly difficult? Everything has a code, a law, a permit, a password, an expert, a specialist, and an exorbitant fee. You can’t just build a deck in your back yard or shoot a BB guns anymore. The occasional firecracker on the driveway brings a threat police and nobody cleans and eats the fish they caught from the lake (catch-and-release for ecological balance).
I know, I know, as I sit here and write I’m enjoying a modern convenience that has actually made the process easier. When I write, I don’t have to type on a typewriter and make it perfect or pull the page and start over and I’m thankful for that. But am I the only one who thinks that in our pursuit for greater things, we’ve made living harder? With summer break upon us, kids around here don’t just go out and play anymore, they are signed up for 15 camps or meet with personal trainers. Two ball fields behind my house sit empty during the day because if you just went out there and took ground balls or hit or played ghost baseball (like we did growing up), you’d be a liability.
So, when I’ve had enough again, we’ll pack up the tent and another broken chair and head off to the woods where there’s no cell signal and little noise. We will sit by that that campfire and tell stories and laugh and enjoy the simpler things. And when that fire goes down, we’ll just grab another log from the bundle of wood that is certified to burn in that park because foreign wood spreads unwanted stuff. It only cost me 10 bucks.
“Dad, when you gotta ‘go’ where do we ‘go’?”
I knew what Brennen meant, but I was surprised he just didn’t take the liberty and head behind a tree (that’s what they do at home).
“No, Dad, we mean ‘GO’” Aidan emphasized.
I got the message.
“Oh, the campground has a restroom just about hundred yards that way.”
They took off in the direction I pointed while I finished searing sirloin. In less than 5 minutes they returned, rummaging in the back of the pickup. They pulled out a broken camping chair, opened it, and took a knife to the canvas seat, cutting a hole in the middle.
“Dad, the restroom was nasty, so check it out … the poopie chair.”
And they tromped down the bluff just out of sight and constructed a sportsman’ paradise. The chair overlooked a deep valley and was equipped with a branch to hold a roll of toilet paper. A shovel leaned against a nearby tree to cover “it” and dig another hole. There was no worry of clogs and missing plungers, just the small issue of a wayward hiker or curious creature. A nighttime run could also pose an issue if you’d grown up on movies like Friday the 13th, but otherwise, their idea served its purpose and was probably a lot more sanitary than the campground Turkish bathhouse.
Fast forward a month later.
While enjoying a meal before one of our favorite Sunday night shows, a rumbling echoed through our walls; the pipes groaned and shook. Water trickled from the faucet and I tore through the closets and cabinets to locate the burst. Dreading a late night crawl under the house, I finally gave in and grabbed the flashlight. A water park had opened in our crawlspace as “the leak” sprayed like an open hydrant.
The plumber’s words were as follows:
Well, you got three things going on down there. You got copper, PVC, and this old galvanized pipe (probably the main line) they don’t even allow anymore. I’m gonna shoot air through the pipes (the water had been turned off), and if the burst is the copper or PVC, no problem, fixed in an hour. If it’s that old galvanized pipe, you’re screwed.
I was screwed.
Three days, $4500 dollars, a tag from the city, and what looked like a mole trail through my driveway, and we moved back in our house.
Only to have our water heater go out a few weeks after.
Now, a new conversation with a plumber:
The city has changed its codes, real strict. You can’t have a gas water heater inside. You gotta cap the gas and run a 220 for electric, have a special drain out the bottom of your house connecting to the sewer line. That is, unless you wanna build a garage.
And then I could see where that conversation would go because our neighborhood has a certain requirement for garages and sheds, where they’re built and what they are made of.
That poopie chair looked better at every moment.
Have you noticed that as our society grows quicker, easier, and more comfortable, it has actually become incredibly difficult? Everything has a code, a law, a permit, a password, an expert, a specialist, and an exorbitant fee. You can’t just build a deck in your back yard or shoot a BB guns anymore. The occasional firecracker on the driveway brings a threat police and nobody cleans and eats the fish they caught from the lake (catch-and-release for ecological balance).
I know, I know, as I sit here and write I’m enjoying a modern convenience that has actually made the process easier. When I write, I don’t have to type on a typewriter and make it perfect or pull the page and start over and I’m thankful for that. But am I the only one who thinks that in our pursuit for greater things, we’ve made living harder? With summer break upon us, kids around here don’t just go out and play anymore, they are signed up for 15 camps or meet with personal trainers. Two ball fields behind my house sit empty during the day because if you just went out there and took ground balls or hit or played ghost baseball (like we did growing up), you’d be a liability.
So, when I’ve had enough again, we’ll pack up the tent and another broken chair and head off to the woods where there’s no cell signal and little noise. We will sit by that that campfire and tell stories and laugh and enjoy the simpler things. And when that fire goes down, we’ll just grab another log from the bundle of wood that is certified to burn in that park because foreign wood spreads unwanted stuff. It only cost me 10 bucks.
