hip deep in the shit

Some days just bite. Consider my sister's day. She had guests visiting from Chicago, when all the toilets backed up in the house and overflowed. We're talking hands and knees and chlorox. When minor measures had failed, she brought in the experts: The Roto Rooter Men. When somewhat more major measures had failed, they decided to take the most major measure of rooting through the septic tank to the pipe opening.
Then they dropped the septic tank lid into the tank. My sister had the pleasure of seeing two alarmed men leaning over the lip, fishing around in her household waste, before calling in a further army of plumbers and septic systems experts. "Every poop consultant in town had their trucks in my driveway," she sighed. Finally, the men left, the guests left, the carpenters who wanted to discuss molding left, and her husband arrived home to break out the wet vac in the basement.
Why I can't stop: The old intake-outgo problem.