Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

The other day I was sitting on my bed, messing around on my computer. It was mid-morning . The kids were upstairs playing, the cat was dozing in her usual spot on my comforter. In the corner of my mind, I noticed a sound. Tippity-tap. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tippity-tap. Tap. "What is that sound?" I thought. It kind of sounded like icicles melting and dripping. Only there weren't any icicles outside my window. So I went back to typing. A few seconds later I heard it again. Tippity-tap-tap. TAP. "What IS that?" I wondered more emphatically. I looked around, tilting my head to catch the direction of the sound. Almost on cue, the cat started looking around as well. And then her eyes drifted upward, to the ceiling. That's when I noticed the crack in the ceiling above my bed. That crack that was DRIPPING WATER ONTO MY CEILING FAN!

CRAAAAP! I thought very emphatically this time. OK, I might have actually yelled it out loud. And I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter, only I was pretty sure it wasn't the dancing and prancing of little reindeer hooves.

It wasn't. I was the pouring and gushing of water onto the floor in the upstairs bathroom. And it was an inch deep! One of my lovely children had turned on the sink to play in and had wandered off, leaving it running. And it just happened (I now noticed) to be one of those rare sinks with no hole do-hickey at the back of the sink to let water out when the sink gets too full. So instead of draining out the non-existent hole do-hickey, it had drained out the top of the basin and onto my floor and through the floor onto the ceiling and through the ceiling onto my ceiling fan, and from the ceiling fan down onto my comforter.

I wasn't sure what I should do first...clean up the water or beat my children. I decided that the beatings could wait (although I did a fair amount of shrieking and ranting, just to set the right mood for what was to come) and pulled all the freshly washed and folded towels onto the floor to mop up the mess.

That done, the interrogation began. Daphne, of course, blamed it on Beck. Beck, of course, said it was him because he admits to anything you ask him, even when he wasn't around when it happened. This was one of those cases where I honestly had no idea which one of them it was. So I did the only fair thing I could come up with--I spanked them both. And though I'm not much for physical punishment, when the ruination of the house is the issue at hand, I find it helpful to punctuate your remarks in a more memorable way than the usual screaming and hair pulling (that would be my own in these lesser cases).

After all that, I realized it was nearly 11 and I still hadn't gotten dressed. So I got in the shower. And when I got out and walked into my room, the cat was staring more intently up at the ceiling. And there was a new sound. Tink, spat. Tinkity tink tink, splat splat splat. This would be the sound of a serious amount of liquid RAINING onto my comforter, my laptop, my iPhone, and my house phone, all of which were clustered under the ceiling fan where I'd left them when I ran upstairs.

Luckily, none of them were ruined. I powered them all down and let them air dry, and they all seem fine. My ceiling, however, has seen better days. And my cat has moved her mid-morning nap spot to the floor a few feet away from my bed. Just in case.






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19 comments:

Hildie said...

I don't have to tell you this happened to me since I'm sure you remember.

Three-year-old and sinks. It's a dangerous, dangerous combination.

veronica said...

I seriously started to feel sick when I read this.
What do you do now? Does it just dry? Do you have to tear up the floor/ceiling?

Jules AF said...

I wouldn't even know what to do in this situation!

Kristina P. said...

My heart just stopped! Scary!

Jen said...

Holy cow! I hope that it doesnt cost too much to fix. That would freak me out being above my bed.

Chelsea said...

Oh no! I hope the overall damage isn't too bad. I'm glad your iPhone and laptop are OK, that would ruin my year to lose both of those in one fell swoop!

Lia said...

We have a flat above us and once while asleep I was dreaming of waterfalls. It was a beautiful dreams. But the waterfalls kept getting louder and I eventually woke up and padded sleepily to the bath to use the loo and found myself in inch deep water and felling like it was raining in the loo.
I soon woke to discover that our house was totally flooded by the neighbours in the flat above us.
They had come home drunk and started to draw a bath, then fallen asleep.

It's a nightmare when the house floods. I hope yours dries out soon.
Much love
Lia
xx

alex dumas said...

I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate water damage, and how paranoid I am about it since it has struck me with disaster so many times. Darn kids. Why do they have to be supervised at all times?

rae said...

That. Stinks.

Plain Jame said...

Kids and water... what is so danged attractive about water? My 3 year old cant get enough, and my 5 year old likes to make hers portable in a spray bottle.
I've never had a child-made flood, but mother nature has flooded us several times. Too many times. The sound of water in the house is my nemesis.

I hope that doesn't leave too much of a mark on your bank account....

Financial Aid for College said...

And of course you remember the time at my house when my roof slowly leaked into the insulation for 6 months, and one night the entire ceiling came loose and fell down upon me in my sleep. Barely conscious, I awoke, looked around at the soggy "drywall" lying all over my bed and the floor, and the black, rotting insulation above, and said, "What is the protocol for this situation? I have no idea what to do." Weren't you there that night?

Mrs. O said...

I actually did this myself, once. I'm blaming it on cancer brain. I started filling the laundry room sink then answered the door and forgot all about the water.

It ran out the sink, down to the floor and through the ductwork to the kitchen below. What a horrible, sopping mess. I probably should've been spanked and had my mouth washed out for the language that ensued during clean-up. That was four years ago and the drywall still hasn't been repaired. Sigh.

Nicki said...

That totally sucks - good luck to Big Daddy :)

Just SO said...

Holy cow!!! That is so scary. I hope you can get things fixed up.

kado! said...

oh no! That is NO good...i hope it is not a huge expensive fix...i hope!!!!!

Koreena said...

Wow!!! I'm so glad your stuff was okay!...minus the ceiling of course. I hope it's not a big pain to get fixed!

Mia said...

Ack! Oh man, kids and water are not a good mix. I think that even if the sink had the extra drain at the top the water would have eventually overpowered the sink and flooded it anyway. I hope the damage is as minimal as possible!

CaraDee said...

Not good. I can def. sympathize. effing water problems.

tiburon said...

Rut roh!!

I would have flipped out too!

Next time call me. I will come and help you issue beatings.