Why Don't We Say Pop?

Replacing underground plumbing is no easy task. I spent the first 3 or 4 weekends as a homeowner digging a hole in my front yard. It was nearly 4' x 12' and over 5' deep. And after the first 2' or 3', the ground is clay... not fun. And it smells, or maybe that was the broken sewer line, whatever. So eventually I get down there and remove all the sections of separated/broken terracotta, and eventually the plumber shows up to fix everything.

So why didn't you just pay the plumbers to dig the hole? I asked myself this every weekend, but then I remembered they wanted $99 per hour for a two man crew to dig it out, and then I snapped to my senses and kept shoveling.

Wanting no part is backfilling this hole, I put it off until this past weekend. I spent a few hours filling Friday after work, and decided it better to wait until Saturday morning when it'd be cooler.

As a side story, Entergy is replacing all the underground gas lines in my neighborhood with higher pressure gas lines. They actually subcontracted it out to some company from Wisconsin. Needless to say, there is plenty of dozers and backhoes and things to break up concrete on every block.

This is where my story comes to its climax. One of the workers (from Wisconsin) must have had pity on me as he watched my skinny, weak ass labor filling the hole. He pulls up in one of the fancy dozer/backhoe combos and says (now please imagine the heaviest Midwest accent), "Yeh want me to fill that?"

My eyes got big and of course I said, "Sure."

So I sat on my stoop drinking Gatorade while this guy dozered and backhoed a huge pile of mud and clay into my hole. The guy saved me at least a couple days of work. He did it in 10 fucking minutes.

When he was finished I asked him if he wanted to get some lunch at Panola down the street. On me, of course.

He yells, "Naaaah, I gotta get back to work... just brang a 12 pack of pop for da crew on Monday!"

(Me thinking).... Pop? hmm... oh, ok. Soda! duh.

"What kind you like?" I yell.

"Uhhhhh, Mountaaain Dew."

So, there you have it. I got my hole backfilled for a $2.99 pack of Mountain Dew.

PS - I have some nice pictures of the whole process but they're on a camera that's in Canada right now... eh.