If you grew up around a family business, you know that there is never a time when you aren’t talking shop. For me, it was plumbing. My grandpa Wayne started a plumbing shop in Boise in 1949 and inspired a few of my uncles to open their own businesses. When he died, my dad took over running the shop. I spend after school and school breaks and summers working in the office and when my brother was old enough, he got to run service calls. He ran enough calls to realize that he did not want that to be his future and is enjoying a career in computers and customer service. If I meet a plumber who has been in the business for any length of time, they are likely to know someone in my family.
Never, in all the years of being around a bunch of plumbers, had I heard of the “Four P’s of Flushing!”
It was news to me as I was looking over some information from the wastewater treatment plant. Nothing outside of the 4 P’s goes down the pipes because it complicates things for wastewater crews (I’ll add plumbers here as well!) Those 4 P’s are Pee, Poo, (toilet) Paper, and Puke.
It makes me smile because I would have loved to share it with my dad, who passed away last year. It would have come up at the dinner table, regardless of it’s appropriate-ness, because we’d be talking shop! And I’m almost sure he would laugh and sum it up with “Job Security!”
