There comes a time in every home owner’s life when something breaks or doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work. Some repairs take just minutes, while others gobble up our time and leave us as wide-eyed as laborers with loose pantlegs on corn shelling day.

It’s the woman of the house who often brings household problems to light. She typically stands next to the man of the house, handing him the tools he needs to wave over a clogged garbage disposal or a broken vacuum cleaner and bring them back to life.

But sometimes restoring household regularity comes at a high price.

One late winter day, my husband discovered a drainage issue in the house. Something wasn’t right, and upon the several investigations that followed, it turns out there was some kind of issue that was keeping the sewer line from flowing.

Given the job ahead of him, my husband spewed his usual string of curse words and started in on the job of fixing that problem. He checked every place where he might gain the easiest access to the line, but eventually it led him to the basement where the sewer pipe protrudes from the wall.

And here is where our story begins.

He grabbed a five-gallon bucket and placed it underneath the end of the pipe and slowly began to unscrew the plug. He turned slowly and the contents ran just as slowly out of the pipe and into the bucket, which he would periodically dump into the sump pit. This tomfoolery continued for a few minutes until it happened. He turned the plug a little too far, he guessed, and the pressure behind it was released.

My husband was in perfect alignment for … well, Satan’s bath. And it didn’t miss.

Of course, he was as grossed out as the person feeling the “brains” at the haunted house, not to mention furious.

We started in cleaning up sewer water — hauling rugs up the steps and outside; putting old towels underneath doors so it wouldn’t run out all over the basement; hosing down the room and scrubbing the floor with plentiful amounts of strong bleach water.

That mop no longer lives here.

When peace and calm had returned, my husband began to clean himself up. He peeled his socks, T-shirt and jeans off, and stood right out in the front yard in his underwear in the middle of the afternoon, hosing the sewer water off of those clothing items.

Our mail carrier must wonder what goes on around here.

When he would talk about it after he showered, he strung those familiar expletives together again before saying, “I had toilet paper in my teeth.”

Truth be told, he did not experience that. But his point was made about how disgusting it was.

Here’s a guy who raised hogs for 25 years and never once flinched at the thought of having his jeans splattered or even caked with hog poop. They just came off at night and went into a pile of chore clothes that were my responsibility to deal with. Apparently, I handle mounds of clothing that have seen the back ends of farm animals better than my husband handles household ending stocks on his person.

It took me right back to the days when our children were babies. My husband managed to change a dirty diaper once or twice, but listening from the other room during the process, you would have thought he had just stumbled home from a college frat party, with the dry heaves he would broadcast — and all at the very thought of getting a little baby poop on his knuckle.

He has never been a fan of wearing people doo-doo as a fashion accessory.

I do have to hand it to him this time especially, for taking one for the team. A sewage bath was a poetic symbol of how all of 2020 had gone.

I bet he trades places with me the next time I say, “Hey dear, the toilet won’t flush.”

But I’ll have six years of baby diaper experience behind me to give me the strength to deal with it.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net.