Dear Sirs and Madams:
I know you have a lot of things on your mind. It isn’t easy dealing with the great issues of our time like whether to allow smoking inside a bar or outside a bar or behind bars. Or whether to build two female restrooms for every male restroom, or unisex rooms that also can be used by bisexuals. Or whether Michael Nutter has kept Mayor Street informed or whether Mayor Street has kept the rest of you informed. Or whether that is a bug on your phone with the feds listening on the other end. This leaves you precious little time to worry about those of us here in South Philly whose basements have been turned into Adventure Aquarium every time it rains.
Maybe you haven’t heard about it? I’ve lived here for about 35 years and, for the first 25, my basement was dry as a bone. Now maybe it’s global warming or that Hurricane Schwartz keeps praying for thunderstorms to boost his ratings, but whatever the reason, when it rains these days most of it winds up in our basements. Let’s put this another way: My wife went out and purchased some tropical fish and thinks that if we charge admission, we can get up the cash to move somewhere else – like the Gobi Desert. Me – I’m thinking of putting a shark tank in our basement so maybe Cecily Tynan will visit us for a swim. My son, who lives in our basement, has taken to sleeping on a raft and our dog, Tuddy, who sleeps down there with him, was seen putting on a life preserver before settling down for the night. If I held craps games in my basement, they’d be floating craps games.
About 10 years ago, when our basements first began to flood every time it rained, a bunch of us got Councilwoman Anna Verna and state Rep. Ron Donatucci to come down and talk to us. It resulted in getting our sewers cleaned. Notice the sequence here – we get our basements flooded and then they clean the sewers. Last year, after my basement flooded twice in the span of a few months, I called the Water Department and the guy explained to me that we need new sewer construction down here. He suggested we circulate a petition. We got the petition signed and sent it off and all we got for our effort was carpal tunnel syndrome.
The insurance company no longer answers my phone calls. You see, insurance is a funny racket. The way it goes is you pay your premiums on time and they get insulted when you make what they consider to be too many claims. I told them I’d be happy to stop making claims if the sewers in my neighborhood would stop backing up into my basement. They answered me by doubling my premium.
This used to be a nice neighborhood before it turned into Water World. Some of us even had nice rugs in our basements and digital TVs and real comfy sofas. But now all those nice things have long ago floated away and have been replaced by pumps and sand bags. Why is it I feel as if I’m starring in a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?
I know we can be a pain in some ways down here. We don’t always obey the parking rules (Did you see my column from a couple of weeks ago where I mentioned a guy who parks his boat on our street? With all of this flooding, maybe he’s on to something). While we can be irritating, we do pay our taxes, which means we also pay your salaries. Why is it only the big shots get to play when they pay? All we want is a little consideration and a place to put our stocking feet where they won’t get wet. You remember how down here we were known for our taste in fancy footwear? Well, all we’re wearing these days are boat shoes.
You think maybe some of you could visit us down here to figure out what the problem is? (Warning: if you do and it’s raining, you may want to roll up the cuffs on your Armani suits). Anyway, I see they are predicting thunderstorms this afternoon so we stocked our basement with trout. So, if you like to fish, you’re most welcome to stop by.
Your humble constituent, Tom Cardella
