Yikes, this is gonna cost me $XXXVMMCXCVII

Sure puts a new spin on “Waste not, want not”

My garage is literally falling down. Not all at once, but definitely bit by bit. Some folks have been stopping by on my driveway for periodic deterioration checks. I hear there’s a pool on when the roof will cave in.

So we’ll demolish the garage and build a new one. Curiously, the Town of Ipswich has a few things to say about this project. It seems if I want to build a garage on the east side of my house, they need to inspect the septic system on the west side of my house.

There won’t even be a toilet in the new garage. No flushing whatsoever. But just about any construction, renovation, addition, or footprint change on an Ipswich property requires a so-called “Title V” inspection.

What is Title V, you ask? I certainly did.

As I understand it — and I’m no lawyer; I’m not even a plumber — you call it “Title Five,” not “Title Vee.” Massachusetts uses Roman numerals to number its laws. Sure, this helps Italians can keep them straight, but it forces the rest of us to stop and figure out a translation. Why do our leaders persist in this annoying practice? I don’t know, but they’ve been doing it since MDCXXXIV.

Title V is a law of our dear Commonwealth, part of the state Environmental Code, regulating how you dispose of your excretions.

Titles I through IV set up our government bureaucracy, specify what it takes to get thrown in prison, and show you how to get a divorce. But get past all that lightweight stuff and you come to Title V: 58,784 words on what to do about your doo.

Now, sad to say, Title V has come a-knockin’ on my bathroom door.

My 209-year-old house stands on the far reaches of civilization, nearly a mile west of Route 1, where we aren’t connected to “Town sewage.” We’re respectable New Englanders; we keep our stuff to ourselves. What flushes on outer Linebrook stays on outer Linebrook.

At my place, our waste flows through a discreet underground pipe into a tank discreetly buried in the backyard. After the gunk sorts itself out a little, the liquids exit through another discreet underground pipe into a discreet underground “diverter box” or “distribution box.” If you want to be cool like dudes in the septic biz, you call it a D-box.

The D-box splits the flow into a number of other discreet underground pipes, each of which leads to a discreet underground leach pit. Here, the nasty stuff soaks through the soil, where Mother Nature’s bacteria clean it up before it reaches groundwater.

Unfortunately, a Title V crew can’t really get a good look at your D-box if it’s discreetly underground. So this morning, our guys brought their Bobcat into our backyard and dug what looked like a small gravesite.

What they found was a D-box probably buried there during the Rutherford Hayes administration.

Our septic tank was not much newer — Grover Cleveland, maybe.

Bottom line: We flunked Title V.

So now it’s a race. Can we get a whole new septic system installed on the west side of the house before the garage goes kaboom on the east side of the house?

I expect the neighbors have already started a whole new pool.

The obvious alternative is an outhouse. My wife, normally the economical one, has refused to even discuss this with me.

I’m disappointed, frankly, that she’s going all prim and proper with so much money on the line. To me, it’s a simple question: outhouse, or poorhouse?

One other option would be to move to New Hampshire. No Title V up there. They’re way looser.