The Princess and the Pee

*Contains explicit lyrics. Viewer discretion advised. By this I mean my mother, who, to this day refers to buttocks as a "muumuum." Given the nature of the topic, certain language must be used to facilitate a more poetic flow.



Wow. It’s been forever since I’ve had the opportunity to think and write clearly. For the last three weeks I’ve been awakened bright and early. Not because I’m so excited for the day to begin. When I roll out of bed to turn off what I think is my alarm, I’m thrown into a state of confusion, like a soap star with amnesia. I try to turn off the beeping but to no avail. It is in my head, my ears; I’m going mad. In the darkness I flounder for familiarity. Careening into walls, I hear myself shrieking, “What is the noise? Why won’t it stop? What is happening to me?” I cover my ears in horror and throw myself headlong into my pillow to stifle the madness.

That’s how my day has begun each and every day for the past three weeks. Maybe I exaggerate, but it’s believable. I’ve been awakened by a high pitched BEEP-BEEP-BEEP over which I have no control. It is neither my alarm clock nor an infernal biological clock. It is the result of the Marysville Pipe Dream.

I’m sure everyone has heard the, “Hey I’m driving in reverse so get out of my way you idiot” beeping when big trucks are trying to back up. I get to hear it every morning right under my bedroom window. It is earthmovers, dump trucks, back hoes, cranes, shuttle launchers, bull dozers, tourist buses, presidential motorcades and helicopter landing gear all part of the unearthly dirty business called Marysville’s new sewer treatment drain pipe. Said pipeline must travel along our yard and dump into the creek behind the house.

Let me review the events leading to the Project Roto-Rooter. Last fall they (and by “they” I’m referring to the minions employed by the construction capitalists employed by the city of Marysville) started digging across the street. It was inconvient, but not unlivable. They ripped out the community sledding hill and fastened a Port-O-John in the most indiscreet place, but other than that, nothing too intrusive. I can tell few women are working this job otherwise the Port-O-Pot would not be right next to the road, but somewhere out of sight, say, behind a heaping brown mound. By that I mean actual dirt.

Mind you, where we live on Watkins Road there is nothing, no one and no noise for at least 1500 feet in any given direction. There are cows, and except for the odd morning when they come up to our door, they keep their mooing to a minimum. I honestly thought that the business across the street was as good as it was going to get. No. I was sadly mistaken. This was only phase one of the Mayor’s Great Porcelain Throne Judgment.

Phase Two to Come...