Monday Morning Mayhem

It's Monday - and Glenn is gone - so you know what that means, something is going to break down at the house.................

I got up at my usual 5:45 time and donned socks and my workout outfit and headed downstairs - I walked into the bathroom on the main level and stepped on the little rug in front of the toilet and that certainly woke me up as it was cold AND wet!!  I peeked down at the hose that goes from the floor to the stool and could see it was dripping!  Any 1/2 way intelligent female knows that when something like that is happening, you turn off the valve - and that's when the excitement began.

I no sooner touched the valve turnoff and the hose flew off and water sprayed everywhere!  My mind immediately went into panic mode as this icy water is soaking me and I grabbed the hose and tried to stick it back in the other hose but of course it was pumping what seemed like gallons of water out on the floor...........

That didn't work at all - and I knew I had to get the water shut off before it completely flooded everything - so I stood up and dripping water from not only my clothes but my face and hair, raced (and I mean RACED) down those basement steps (almost knocking the graduation pics off the wall that are hanging in the stairwell) and threw stuff aside in the storage room (as there's always something in the way when you're in a hurry) and shut the main water breaker off.

And you can't believe how much water came out on the floor during that trip to the basement - the bathroom was of course flooded but it had run out onto the wood floor in front of the pantry and was about to head in there when I grabbed towels and got it stopped. 6 dripping wet towels later, I had the mess cleaned up and headed down to the laundry room to see the damage down there because that's where the water goes through the floorboards into.  (we've had one other major issue with water so I KNEW what would happen).  Sure enough, it's dripping from the ceiling behind the washer and also running into the light fixture and running out of that at a pretty good rate.  I grabbed more towels and cleaned up that mess.

OK - what to do - and at that point I thought to myself - you dummy, why didn't you turn off the valve????  Back upstairs to check on this point and I guess the reason I didn't think to do that was because the valve part was on the hose part hanging from the tank!!!  All that was left on the floor was this little white hose sticking up through the tile!

I really wanted a shower - I could do without washing my hair but a shower would be nice.  I tried to put the hose back in and kind of screw it in and it did stay - I thought MAYBE if I put duct tape on it that might hold - but of course there's no duct tape to be found so I used strapping tape.  I put a dry towel around it and decided to go for it!!

I turned the breaker back on in the basement and raced upstairs - the tape held it for 2 seconds and then it was a repeat experience of the paragraph up above..............sigh....................Now there's 12 sopping wet towels - water pouring down the light fixture again in the basement and NO water whatsoever in the house for my sponge bath.   I did have enough in a spray bottle to wash my face and brush my teeth!

After I drove in to work, I called the plumber that we always refer our clients to and told him the problem - he was out to my house an hour later and called me to tell me that there was a part missing of the hose that SHOULD have been there when the house was built - some type of clamp deal - I honestly don't remember the terminology and he asked who did the plumbing in our house when it was built?  I told him it was Glenn - so that may be something the plumber will get a chuckle out of when he sees Glenn the next time!

Anyway, the fix was extremely easy - my water is back on - and now I only have to go home tonight and wash 12 sopping wet towels!  I can live with that - because that hose could have come off AT ANY TIME and if it would have been during the day, we would have had a flooded home with thousands of dollars of damage - an angel must have been with me this morning!