July 20, 2008

The stupidest thing ever, so far anyway

Oh, boy. This one tops anything yet to which I've ever admitted here on the Blogicito.

I flooded the house.

Actually it was only two-thirds of one level of the house, not the whole house, which would be difficult to do since it is several levels.

Whenever the water has been off for awhile, we have to clean all the crud and black water out of the lines. I've explained that before and I'm not in the mood to do it again. Read this if you don't remember.

I started my rounds of all the faucets and showers. Finally, I turned on the kitchen faucets (we have two sinks)

After all the usual crap came out, I noticed the water was still yellow from the sand/soil in the well. So I left the faucets running and I went upstairs to the....um....you know....the computer.

I was just going to check my email, not answer anything, you know? But then there was this interesting article I was just going to glance over. Then I had to look at some photos that someone sent me. Then there was that 'urgent' email that needed to be answered. And then an idea for a blog for which I was just going to make a few notes. And then later, much, much later, I went downstairs to find this:





Can you imagine my face when I turned the corner and saw my kitchen? And then when I looked to the hall and saw the water coming my way and headed down the hall toward the guest bedrooms. And then looked to the sala and saw all the wooden furniture legs soaking up water. Thank goodness for ceramic tile floors. Oh, this was nice, too:

wet tablecloth
The tablecloth had sucked up water to about 5 inches above the hem. An added bonus:

particle board table, soakedparticle board table, soaked









This was an old, cheap table meant to be covered with a tablecloth to hide its cheapness. When people tell you not to get furniture made with particle board in the tropics, please believe them.

Many thoughts rushed through my blood-pounding pea-brain in the first few seconds. I looked around for somebody to blame, for someone to beg to help me with this monumental task, but there was no one else around. I thought about calling El Jefe to see if he could come home to help, but then discarded that idea quickly thinking about trying to explain what happened. The teenager in me thought about running away. In my dazed state, I even thought for just a few moments about bringing the dogs in to see if they could drink it, but I didn't think they would be up to that task. No, I guess not, because after I mopped up this 7 gallons of water...

mop bucket
there was this one:

mop bucket
and then this one:

mop bucket
then this one:

mop bucket
and this one:

mop bucket
and then finally this last couple of gallons.

mop bucket
Two and one-half hours of mopping. Thirty-seven gallons of water.

I left the fans running to help to dry everything out and went to bed.


---------

Okay. I know you want to know: How did this happen? The strainer in the small sink ALWAYS falls down and locks itself for filling the sink. ALWAYS. No matter how carefully it is placed. I know this, yet I started the water running without removing it. Apparently it locked itself into fill mode the moment I left the kitchen. It's a small sink, so within a few minutes it had filled, the water ran over (and behind) the countertops and continued on its merry way. That is why it was stupid.



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