Flushing my toilet with impunity

I mentioned a (WHOLE FREAKING) month ago that our sewer was clogged with tree roots. First, B told me his friend had the equipment to fix it. He didn't. Then B tells me the chemical stuff he bought would help. It didn't. Then B says he's going to call a plumber (whose phone number and price estimate I provided him). It never happened.

During the month of sewer clog inaction, we had to regulate our water and sewer usage to make sure we didn't flood the whole basement (we only flooded a minor portion of the basement near the floor drain). The changes we had to make included:  adopting an "if it's yellow, let it mellow" philosophy; keeping showers to five minutes or less; only doing one load of laundry ever four or five hours (and not at all if the dishwasher needed to be run or the children needed a bath). Any time we did any of the "forbidden" activities (especially if two were done close in time), the floor drain filled and spilled over, bringing with it the stench of sewage. It was gross. No, repulsive is more accurate.

Once I finally got it through my head that B was clearly not going to take care of getting the sewer cleaned, fate stepped in. R woke up with a teething fever this morning that was low-grade, but enough that he would have been sent home from daycare as soon as the motrin wore off. So we all stayed home. Around 8:00 this morning, I had the brilliant idea that I could call the plumber, since I was going to be home all damn day. So I did.

They came around 2:00, spent an hour cleaning out tree roots, and assured me that the sewer line looks great - my greatest fear was finding out we need to replace the whole line. He did say the manhole by us is filled with tree roots, so we need to call the city and have them come look at it. He also told us we were doing far better than the house down the street whose sewer they had just spent hours pulling baby wipes out of. I thought baby wipe 101 was "NO WIPES IN THE TOILET!" Someone down there must have missed the memo.

So the sewer saga is over for now. I still need to take gallons of bleach and gallons of Killz to the floors and walls down there to kill any sewer nastiness that accumulated over a month of floor drain overflows. But I'm now able to flush after every potty trip, and shower long enough to shave my sasquatch legs (for the last time of the season, might I add). That's success for now, I suppose.

Operation Bleach the Eff Out of My Basement commences tomorrow.