3:15pm Tuesday
"Uh oh... Houston....We have a problem."
That was the first part of the text message from my wife.
My first thought was that we hit a snag with the Christmas party that is scheduled for this Friday.
Nope.
The rest of the message spelled out the problem thusly:
"Basement flooding, Pedro on the way."
The connotations that come to mind when the word "flooding" is used are always scary. And in my mind, the entire pool had emptied itself into the basement. As usual, my brain tends to think in extremes.
I tossed my laptop into my bag and sped home. Images of water lapping against the basement steps and a lot of sparks emanating from all the electronics downstairs swirled around inside my head.
As luck would have it Coco had sent her son Javier to the basement to store some boxes when he noticed the floor on the east end was taking on water. The room is used for storage and of most of the stuff down there is kept in rubbermaid containers...even the gun safe is raised up just a skosh to prevent water intrusion. Javier hollered something in Spanish and Coco and Co. rushed downstairs to begin immediately mopping and cleaning up the water.
The Spanish got even faster and louder at that point.
Apparently, as one of the pool pumps was being worked on, a ghost in the machine turned the system on and water began spewing out of the pump against the house, which soaked the ground and seeped into the places that water goes and finally wound up bleeding out of the lowest part of the house - the basement.
No one was manning the pool equipment when it turned into a water feature as Pedro was en route to get a part for the pump. I think I MAY have switched the system from "Service" to "Normal" at some overzealous point last night. Okay, so maybe I was partially to blame for this circus. Partially.
After the pump was shut off, the boxes were cleared out of the room and the floor mopped up, it was time to survey the damage. The good part is that we live in the driest climate in the country. The walls, floor and ground will dry without question. Mold? This word has taken on such dreadful meaning in the past few years but I am convinced that since the pool is filled with chlorinated water we won't have an issued with mold. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it. Mold has been around forever - deal with it.
From this little hiccup I sped to church. Cleaning time again. Once again I pulled bathroom and toilet duty. Wearing rubber gloves I can clean anything so it wasn't a big deal plus the other people there to help clean weren't really the cleaning types. Sure then can wave a duster around, or vacuum. When the ox is stuck in the quagmire you do what you gotta do. Me? I can clean.
We had signed up a few weeks ago to feed the missionaries on this particular evening and like the other times we have done this we ended up ordering pizza and wings since we ALWAYS find ourselves double or triple booked when we offer to provide dinner.
The sister missionaries met us at church and followed us home. They were from Salt Lake and Milwaukee respectively. We talked, they ate. An hour passed. By now, the activities committee had started arriving at the house....more people. More meetings. More things to plan and review.
9:30pm and the last guests were leaving....
They were admiring our Christmas lights....
Janae let the dogs out....
Ray Ray raced to pee on his favorite tree....
That had lights wrapped around it
Lights Out.
This. Is. My. Life.
1 comment:
I would definitely DVR your TV show every week if you had one....
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