It might be a strange statement that when dealing with shit (literally), it makes me proud to be an American.  But it does. This morning I called a local septic tank company which services one of our many rural Waffle Houses.  The call was like countless other conversations with these small, family owned businesses; and as always one constant was in the background:  a crying baby.

For you city dwellers, a septic system is a way of disposing of the waste that goes down your sink, toilet, dishwasher and processing it when a local municipality is not capable of providing sewer.  Part of this process involves a septic tank, which is literally a large tank in the ground that holds all of your solids (human waste, food scraps).  Once every six months to a year this tank must be pumped.  It’s a smelly job and not for the weak.

This is not some major company, there is no office address, no 401k for employees.  Here is a rural family, whom likely has a mortgage, a car payment, a work truck payment and a baby.  The wife is a stay at home mother whom also juggles answering the phone for clients, dispatching the husband to jobs, bookkeeping for the company, shopping, laundry cooking… the list goes on and on.  The husband is out before dawn every day.  He leans over moves a 75lb man hole cover (some times four of them) and sticks an apparatus that looks like a giant beater from your mom’s kitchen-aid mixer into a hole in the ground to break up smelly, deteriorating human waste that has been in a hole for 6+ months.  Every night he comes home from work….want to guess what he smells like?

Yet despite all of this, they press on and they work day in and day out.  They chase the American dream, participate in capitalism and bring a much needed service in an industry that is not glamorous.  I respect them for what they do, and I hope everyone else does as well.