A toilet tale.

Few things in the ordinary course of home life will catch your attention as sharply as an overflowing toilet. 

It happens a lot, and more so now that our toilets flush with low amounts of water. The newer low-flow cans are better than the first generation, but there's still not a lot of oomph there. On the other hand, if the clog is a real banger, there's that much less water to go spilling out all over the floor. 

I had a pretty good clog the other day. I won't bother you with details except to say that neither of my first two tricks worked. Those are:

#1: Leave the toilet and hope it resolves itself. Sometimes it does. If you have a second toilet you can use, sometimes it pays to let the water do its magic. When you return, the bowl is almost empty, and most likely the clog has moved along.

#2: Try to use the plunger for one good shot. Nine times out of ten, one nudge with a good plunger is all it takes. 

No, my can chose option #3: Start spilling water all over the place. 

I did get it cleared up, fortunately, although it required a load of towels to be washed with Lysol Laundry Sanitizer and the floor to be sanitized as well, just in case. No damage was done to the ceiling below, so I have to consider it a success. 

But that's a small problem. There are larger problems afoot. 

A couple of months ago, the town sent out an alert about our collective garbage use. When the town makes a contract with a private collection firm, it estimates regular household use to come to a certain quantity per household--no more than four big cans' worth a week. That's a huge amount for the average home. However, I can't help but notice that some houses nearby, including one right across the street, put an awful lot more than that out quite often. Which is why we got the alert: Our overall garbage disposing has gone over the upper limit of our contract. 

If you live in America and you are not blinkered, you know why: Houses in residential areas, even here in the exurbs, are being rented out and stuffed with grown-ups who come from distant lands without following expected protocols. 

When the houses were built in our development, we had to sign a covenant that said we would not rent it out. Well, that was nice while it lasted. The former neighbor who sold his house told me he had no idea it was going to be used this way. An old expression about one being born every minute comes to mind. Well, he doesn't have to live near it.  

But it all brings us back to plumbing. A friend of mine who would know says that while the town (supposedly) figures our the growing population for water and sewer needs, it still only calculates based on two or three adults and maybe as many as four children per household. When you have eight or more adults under a roof, repeated in house after house, there's going to be a shock to the system. We're not there yet, but if current trends continue, we may be in for a surprise one day. We may flush that toilet and the sewer may say, "Your flush is important to us. We are experiencing higher than normal flush volume right now. Please enjoy this backed up sewage while you wait." 

This is what we can expect in a country where our "leaders" think it's a great idea to let millions upon millions of unknowns enter and spread out to every city, hamlet, village, and town. Johann Friedrich von Schiller famously wrote, “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.” So what chance do civil engineers have?