Susan Writes

I awoke to the noise of the wet vacuum roaring. Husband wasn’t anywhere in sight.  Even in my half-awake state, I knew somewhere in our house there was a water mess. Maybe I’d just cover my head and pretend I slept right through whatever was happening.  But I couldn’t.

It was 5:30 a.m. and at 1:00 p.m., thirty women were coming to my house for a meeting.  I’d cleaned, set up folding chairs – done everything to be ready.  I frantically tried to think if I’d left water running the night before.  I thought of the day I’d stopped up the utility room sink, turned on the water, and then, two hours later, water-soaked ceiling tiles fell in the garage. And I remembered the time I supervised one of our Grands during his bath, and he poured water around the bathtub to make a moat. The office under the bathroom was flooded. Now what?

Following the vacuum noise, I found Husband in the basement den.  The carpet was soaked and water covered the bathroom tile floor.  I stood quietly until he saw me and turned off the vacuum.  “Did I leave something on?”  I asked.   No.  The water leak was behind a commode.  The shut-off valve had sprung a leak.  When Husband awoke and heard water running, he discovered a spraying fountain.

“The only way I could stop the spray was to turn off the main water supply.  There’s no water in the house. Don’t’ turn on any faucets or flush a commode,” Husband said. He turned on the wet vac and resumed his chore.

Greatly relieved that I hadn’t caused the problem, I headed to the kitchen to make coffee. I never found the gallon of emergency water that I thought I kept under the sink.  I learned that two cups of ice cubes melted for three minutes in the microwave equals 1¼ cups of water.

As I handed Husband a steaming cup of black coffee, I asked, “Is this a leak you can fix?”

He answered with a question – one that told me he knew what I was really thinking. “What time is your company coming?”  I hated the mess and knew the leak had to be fixed, but my real concern was that we ladies had to have water to wash our hands and flush.  I’ve learned that in situations like this that the best thing I can do is to be quiet and get out of the way.

When I returned from the gym after exercising and taking a shower, a crew from a cleaning service had finished the water vacuuming job and set up powerful fans to dry the carpet, and plumbers had repaired the shut-off valve.  Once again, water flowed. I profusely thanked Husband – I’ve always appreciated that he’s a take-charge, fix-it guy.  And I smugly, but silently, I congratulated myself for staying calm.

And then a few minutes before my company arrived the doorbell rang, and there stood a pest control man.  He held a bug sprayer.   By the time I told him about the water spraying from behind a commode and all the repair men who’d been in our house that morning and the two times that I’d accidentally flooded our house in the past year and that thirty ladies would be at my doorstep any minute, he practically ran to his truck.

Poor guy.  I just couldn’t be calm and quiet one minute longer.

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Filed under: Everyday Life, Flood | Tagged: company coming, flood, wet vacuum |