There are a lot of septic tanks in my neck of the woods.  If they were lined up end-to-end, the smell would clear out South Carolina’s Upstate, so we will leave them buried, unlike the owner of the septic system in the picture!  I am told that there are so many because Spartanburg’s growth happened faster than its ability to install sewers.  So far, I can not find the spot where the sewer crews threw up their hands and said, “We quit!  We can’t go this fast!”.  You would think that there would be a capped pipe somewhere, surrounded by abandoned digging equipment.  Nothing yet, though.  But I telecommute so I don’t get out much.  Right now, my boss thinks I’m working.  Back to septic systems . . .

It’s not that I’m anti-septic; I just have never had one before.  When my neighbor suggested that I have mine pumped out, I jumped at the chance so I could see what one looked like.  Since I wasn’t sure how a pumping service worked, I rented some privacy screens, but the guy who showed up to do the sucking said that I wouldn’t need them.  After watching him bend over the tank, I’m not so sure.

After some poking around, he found the burial site, and dug.  Shortly, thereafter, I was face-to-face with the lid.  And then . . . I’m not sure that I should go on with the rest of this part of the story.  Let’s just say that I have a new respect for doctors who do colonoscopies.

Yet, looking down into the murky depths, but not too hard, several things occurred to me:

• I should have had a septic tank back when I wore contacts.  They went away with the advent of my need for decafocals.  When I wore contacts, though, the threat of the drain gave me shivers.  I couldn’t fathom the distance that my contacts traveled once washed down the drain.  Now, I would know.  They would be under the front yard.  Not that I would get them, but I’d feel less of a loss and maybe have a chance of recovering them when the suction guy came around.  On second thought, I don’t think that I’d put them in my eyes even if I recovered them, so never mind.
• Recovering jewelry, on the other hand, could happen.  I’ll bet that inside those suction trucks is a filtering mechanism to catch valuables.  It just makes sense, and it probably also makes for a lucrative side business.
• What will archaeologists find in a few thousand years, and how will they interpret their results?  If I were an archaeologist, I might have to take note of the fact that during the Poop Age, humans buried their dead far away from home but kept their excrement nearby, in a sarcophagus.  And how would you explain all that jewelry if not for some kind of poop worship?

Unfortunately, the suction guy left before I could ask where the leech field was, and why septic tanks needed a field of leeches.  A question for his next trip, I guess.