i think the head is full

I get anxious about all sorts of things on the boat - sudden wind gusts, heeling over too far, if we are suddenly going to go aground while Sam just tells me to relax. Even Sam suddenly becomes concerned when someone says those fateful words "I think the head is full". This never seems to come at a convenient time. If only we could time these occurrences to coincide with a convenient pump out station but no such luck. Usually during the summer we have someone come each week to pump us out - hey $20 is a bargain after having done it ourselves, okay Sam, way too many times (maybe 5 times but that is way too many). This would have to be near the top of my list for underpaid professions.

In these situations getting it taken care of becomes somewhat of an emergency especially when you have female passengers for whom the back of the boat is not an emergency option. This past week it happened at the dock in Poulsbo but when you realize it just before bed and have to go to work the next morning leaving before the pump out opens the timing isn't especially good. We called someone to pump us out and sure enough he was a no show. Now I am used to no shows after our home remodeling projects, but the pump out guy pulling one is about the last person you want to no show. Usually Sam is bummed if I work remotely and he has to go into the office but on this morning I swear I saw a smile on his face when he told me to enjoy working from the boat.

I realized later in the day there was another reason Sam was so happy early in the morning on his way to work. I decided to empty out our coolers and the bait he had bought on Sunday was still there after 4 long hot days without any refrigeration. Lets just say even the crabs didn't want any part of that bait. So now I had funky smells above deck and below. The office never looked so good.

The pumpout guy showed up the following day - finally. Turns out he was getting interviewed for a newspaper article. All I could say was "really"? I mean is this something people want to read about over their morning lattes - guess they were a bit hard up for some news. I actually thought it might be an expose on dirty jobs or why a college degree is very important but he told me they were interested in how it all worked. I don't want to know how it works I just want it done so I can hand over the cash and you can motor away, in fact I would really like to pretend we never even had this transaction.

The good news is that once he was done the smell was gone or at least it was after I poured some pretty blue chemicals into the head. The joys of boat ownership. I always wanted a nice sized head on my boat but I never really gave much thought to what happened after we had used it a few times. I have to say though I usually need to remind Sam about many things but our weekly pump out never seems to be one of them, must be all about priorities.