Maeng Mulok (Poop Ng Ina Ko)

***GROSS ALERT***

Gross. Gross. Gross. In the many decades that I’ve been alive, I’ve never experienced anything quite like this. I’ve heard of it, many have spoken about it, but I never thought I’d live to see the day, that our septic tank will need to be drained. Or something like that. Since last night, the bathrooms on the first floor started acting up. The flushes wouldn’t work so we thought it was just a plumbing problem. Turns out, the septic tank had to be emptied. They’ve been working on it since last night, but I never really had to deal with the reality of it, until I came home from a gig earlier this evening. When I got home, the stench of a thousand graves assaulted my sensitive nostrils, with the subtlety of a Mongol horde attack, decimating a hapless Chinese village. The noxious fumes permeated every nook and cranny, every minute pore in every wall. It was like a barricade of odor that stopped you from coming any closer. I wouldn’t even describe it as amoy…rhymes with “mae”…or “mebak”…or “metat”. It’s more of a “sewer from hell” kind of aroma. Our beagles were howling as if in pain, our chihuahua was yapping at the top of her lungs, and our yorkie puppy buried his head under his front paws. I was guessing maybe because dogs have a sense of smell that is so much more sensitive than ours. So if it were unbearable for us people, it must’ve been sheer torture for the poor canines! I ran to my room on the second floor, locked the doors and windows and lit two scented candles and heated some eucalyptus essential oils in those aromatherapy thingamajigs. I had to take a nap to escape that nightmare I was in. Imagine, we’ve been in this house since 1985, and as far as I can remember, we’ve never had to drain that fetid tank. So does that mean we’re inhaling the odors of 23-year-old “mae”? Ulk. The implications are mind-bogglingly gross.

Eventually, the odors subsided, thanks in part to the rains and winds of typhoon Helen, but then, I was summoned by our yaya to come down for dinner. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I thought to myself. How could I even consider eating when the smell, or at least the memory of it, still lingers in my nose hair? But since the scent was actually gone, I tried to eat the fried fish that was on my plate, avoiding all thoughts of chocolate or laing, or anything that reminds me of…you-know-what. Then my mom starts TALKING ABOUT IT — “Hindi nila matanggal yung bara…” — that was the last straw. I had to go upstairs, lit up the candles once again, and grabbed my iPod and played full volume, Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses”, to stamp out thoughts of fried fish covered in 23-year-old…you get the picture.

I’ve calmed down a bit since then. So here I am, writing a blog entry to distract my still reeling mind. My ears are ringing because of the Bon Jovi onslaught, but at least I’m not gagging anymore. I think they solved the problem, but I refuse to go down until they tell me that everything’s okay. I’m holding my puppy and sniffing him every now and then, the way a druggie would sniff a bottle of rugby to get his fix. I hope these things happen once in a lifetime, max. I do NOT want to revisit this bad dream. I hope it takes a hundred years before we have to open that hell-hole again. Let my descendants deal with our ancestral poop.