Today started quite well. I had a bit of a headache when I got out of bed this morning, but that was from the massive amount of cleaning and spackling the day before, in an attempt to redecorate the upstairs bathroom. A little breakfast, and I was ready to start the day.
I had no complaints about work, as everything was nice and dull. The day progressed with no problems, and my headache dissipated.
It was later in the afternoon, as I was getting ready for my Tai Chi class, that things began to go wrong. Oh, it started innocently enough. I decided to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom; a sort of 'inaugural cruise', if you will, since we hadn't really used it since I finished it. Everything went swimmingly, and I went upstairs to get dressed for class.
Here, I digress. Every homeowner, after a certain amount of time, knows every creak, pop, squeak, shimmy, or other annoying noise their home makes. I do. I can tell, from the opposite end of the house, when the ice maker refills. So, when you hear rushing water when the washing machine and dishwasher are both silent, your life passes before you.
And you run.
I wish the Guinness people had been around, because I blew away speed records in reaching the basement. Of course, my first and only thought was stopping the flow of water that was gushing from the access hall between the bathroom and the bedroom, so I neglected to turn on any lights. In the dark, I found the bathroom's shutoff valves and, naturally, turned off the wrong one first. When I finally got the blown line's valve in hand, I was a bit dismayed to find that it wasn't working completely. Fully closed, it was still letting a trickle flow through, deepening my new indoor swimming pool. In wet socks, I slogged over to the main and shut off the whole house.
Thankfully, the idiots that built my house couldn't level a concrete pad to save their lives, so the water was corralled on the uncarpeted side of the basement. Unfortunately, it just happened to be the side with all the boxes and tables jammed against the wall.
It was about this time, for some reason, the song, "Come On, Get Happy" began running through my head. Suddenly, I found myself wondering if David Cassidy was still alive so I could strangle him.
To make a long story manageably short, five hours, two shop vacuums, one box fan, many towels, four repair couplings, and a large amount of primer and cement later, we have running water. The cause of my entire problem had been a small seal in the shutoff valve I mentioned earlier. The seal broke free and was swept through the line to a repair coupling where it, apparently, caused a pressure variance that blew out the compression fitting.
A series of unfortunate events. And none of it was lemony.
This evening, as things were calming down, I was speaking to one of my friends over the phone. She was telling me about how, at around the same time I was having my day's adventure, she was really wishing for a heavy rain. Also, about this time, her grandmother had a water line explode in her basement. She felt bad because she 'caused' it. Hmmm. . . No, Diane, I'm not letting you take responsibility for this one. This is just the way the Universe keeps things interesting for me.
"Come on, get happy"? It's a screaming wonder I don't drink.
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