"A flush is better than a full house", or so says the septic inspector

As in most homes where two small boys reside, the arrival of large vehicles is generally met with great glee and excitement around here. UPS trucks (hey Sluggo!), Fed Ex trucks (shout out to Nick and Jeff!), Propane delivery, dump trucks, etc. are all worthy of a lawn chair, a cold one, and setting down for a spell to watch.

Imagine the getsitement when this one pulled into our driveway last week:

The big, giant truck o' poo. Also known as the septic inspector's rig.

Max and Sam immediately begged to go outside and watch. There are few things more frightening to me than the idea of my offspring falling into a hole of poo, so I superglued their bottoms to the front porch. OK, I really didn't need to do that, since the smell of raw sewage offered its own natural repellent and kept them a good ten feet or so away.

The boys watched in awe as the inspector stuck a large shovel! into the tank! and measured! the sludge! and scum!. It was all very getsiting and interesting and prompted Max to announce that when he grows up, that was what he wanted to do.

And I flashed back to the endless nights when I rocked, nurtured, fed and soothed my little babe, filled with all the hope and awe and wonder of new motherhood. Secure in the knowledge that all that sleep deprivation, weight gain, hormonal wack-a-doodle-ness was going to someday pay off as I presented this world with a great intellect, artist, scientist, peace negotiator or NY Times crossword puzzle solver.

Septic dredger; not so much.

But I understood where Max's drive was coming from, and although the interests were probably well aligned, I'd like to find something else that would meet my sons' sensory interests and not require them to stick their hands into Other People's Potty (OPP).

Enter Low Tide:



Marine biology, anyone?