This Man is my Hero

I come from the Mike Rowe generation.  Dirty Jobs was an expose of America's dirtiest, grossest jobs and a tribute to the men and women whom had the pleasure of doing them daily.  The series aired from 2003 until July 2020 (really 2020?!).

I obviously have mad respect for those men and women who are neck deep in some gross stuff. 

Then there is this man, my husband.  He is an educated career man who loves his job, all music, his piano, guitar, good steaks and his family.  He has never been featured on a show with Mike Rowe. 

One area of Full-Time-RV-Living we both heavily researched was the black tank.  For anyone who might not know, RV's typically have a tank for grey water, sinks and showers, and a black tank for sewage.  We read blogs and posts, articles, watched YouTube videos and spoke to RV dealers and friends and family.  So obviously we felt like poop tank experts!  

And then we move in.  

This little guy tells us when, "shitters full".  

At the end of week one, it was time for some action.  Except when we followed the heavily researched protocol, nothing happened.  Things moved into Code Red pretty quickly after that!  Were we frozen? Did we build a poop pyramid (it's a real thing, DON'T google it), fitting for our ancient Egypt history studies.  Were we experiencing a clog? Did a child flush something?!  

The next morning the kids and I went to hang out at the local coffee shop.  They have great donuts and a working bathroom!  It was on this day that Little A told me how he hates pooping in a bucket and that houses and campers are nice because they have toilets so he shouldnt have to be sitting on a bucket going poop right now.  Three years olds are phenomenal! 

You may be interested at this point why I named this post This Man is My Hero.  Well my husband and Mike Rowe (well not exactly, but some really great friends and neighbors) started the laborious, gross and disgusting task of figuring out why.  Its was cold, snowy, and muddy and there he was, my husband, crawling all around trying to reverse engineer the plumbing of a 2011 travel trailer with an encased underbelly. He was under the trailer, in the trailer, fishing things thru the window.  At one point the toilet was off and there were words being spoken about unspeakable acts that must be done.  And then, there was a "hey what's this?", followed by a metal scrape, and a huge rush of liquid.  

And the tank was empty. 

Lessons were learned.  The main one that stands out, "Know your rigg!"  We were told, despite that handy wall gadget, that were were a two tank home.  Two tanks, two valves.  As it turns out, we are a 3 tank, 3 valve rigg.  

My hubby never gave up, he did so many gross things for our family that day.  I believe that Mike Rowe would have been entertained, but me, I am proud!  Proud of the wonderful man I am married too!  Proud of what he is willing to do for our family!  

UPDATE.  Well the Shitters Full again.  The previous bit of education doesn't seem to be as effective as before, but we will figure it all out in time!  

Thank you wonderful hubby for taking a few for the family!