"I'm going to the cottage for a few days," I announced last fall.

"Great," replied Ari, then 14. "When do we leave?"

"No, I'm going. Not you. You are going to school."

"Why can't we come?"

Because I want to sleep in. Because I want to write in solitude. Because I want to eat when I'm hungry, not when the clock says to. Because I don't want to look for anyone's gym shorts. Because I do not want to tread water for 20 minutes while someone tries to water ski on two floaty noodles.

"Because I have to get the septic tank cleaned out," I told him.

"Ewwwwww. How do you do that?"

"With a can of Pledge and a rag, how do you think? The guys come with a big truck and suck it all out. But I have to be there," I explained. I told him to watch it or his face would stay that way.

"That's gross. Do you see it?"

"Not unless you call too late."

I was unsure when it had been done last; we keep all the cottage receipts on a board up there, but the last invoice for the septic suck had the year missing. While most lotteries have happy results if you win, few have such a steep price to pay for losing. I called the company to make arrangements.

"Hi. We need our septic tank sucked out, please."

"Okay, where abouts are you?" asked the lady. "Well, I'm actually here in Burlington, but the tank is up north at the cottage," I replied.

"I figured that," she said patiently. "Where is the tank, exactly?"

I gave her a series of directions that included a lot of "turn left at the big rock" and "turn right at the fallen tree," and a final admonition to not drive into the lake. She calmly wrote down my gibberish.

"Now, you're going to have the hatches cleared and opened before they get there?" she enquired.

"What are hatches?" I asked. She may have sighed, but I'm not sure.

"Well, we have to charge extra for that," she informed me. Thinking this was probably not the time to experiment, I told her I didn't care. She told me they would be there on Tuesday morning.

"Uhm, what do they call morning? Like 9?" I asked.

"They start at 7."

"Tell them to knock loudly."

On the appointed day, I heard the truck backing down the driveway, at 11 a.m. The only thing worse than imagining the idea of that big truck in your driveway is realizing that you're the second stop. Two remarkably cheerful guys hopped out, pulling on gloves.

"We got a little turned around. Almost ended up in the lake," said one.

And people think my directions are silly. They found the hatches in a couple of minutes, and in no time at all they were done. I handed over a cheque, and asked how often I should call them. He told me about every 5 years was fine, I thanked him and off they went.

I settled down to write in the blissful peace of a quiet cottage nestling into the oncoming autumn. When I got home, both boys warily asked how it went.

"Was it gross?" asked Christopher, then 16.

"What's it look like?" asked Ari.

"It was horrible," I told them. "You would die. Both of you." I shuddered for effect.

"And I have to go up every fall and get it done," I continued.

www.lorraineonline.ca