Aug 31, 2006

RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN’ ON MY HEAD

Oh my gosh! A week ago now, it was nearing midnight and I went to the kitchen to rinse out a dish left in the sink from a friend coming to dinner earlier. When I turned on the faucet, the top flew off spewing water everywhere! It was literally raining in our kitchen! Had a few surreal moments with thoughts like “This isn’t really happening, I must be dreaming because this kinda thing is meant for the movies, not real life!” Woulda sworn I was dreaming in fact, except that I could smell the pasta I’d prepared and could feel the water raining down on my back as I fumbled with the handle to no avail. I got my bum movin’ and ran to Tina’s door.

“Tina, Oh, my gosh, Tina! Water, water everywhere! It won’t stop! Stop it! We gotta call the emergency number! Call the emergency number! I’m going to get the phone. Get the phone!”

Tina’s calling the emergency number …“Babe?” she said …

… uh, babe?

“Hi!” she continued. “My sister woke me up and I’m in the kitchen and there’s water everywhere! No, water! WATER! Everywhere! Babe! What do I do?”

She’d called her boyfriend.

I’d frantically began removing stuff from under the sink to reach the knobs to turn the water off. She did a mini-dive under the sink next to me and began working on the knobs as he instructed her on which one of the three to try. We had water jets in the face, up the nose, down the back, we were sopping wet! While she maneuvered the knobs, I grabbed a phone and began calling the real emergency number. Ringing … still ringing … no answer, no voice mail picking up either … hmm … it occurred to me, why not take some pictures?

Was snapping away (camera’s often thisclose to me), when I began to catch bits of conversation from Bean over the sound of gushing water …

“… something going on … electrical … yeah … flashes like lightning … overhead lights … electrocuted … help … what do I do?!”

WE WERE SO FLIPPING SOAKED AND I REMEMBERED THE WILD-EYED LOOK ON HER FACE AS SHE CAME BARGING OUT OF HER ROOM, DOOR FLUNG OPEN, GLASSES ASKEW

I let out a teeny little laugh over her thinking that the camera flashes were electrical issues caused by the water. Tried to point and yell and let her know it was just the camera, but she couldn’t even begin to hear me. She was losing the battle under that sink so I gave it a shot next. Lefty-loosy, tighty-righty, I repeated to myself. NOTHING was working. No knob seemed to be the one. I began cranking one of the suckers to the left all the way.Turning, turning, turning, as the knob came loose, as in wobbly, in my hand. “Oh, no, it does NOT!” I’m thinking, “It can’t fall off!” One more hard crank to the left caused the water pressure to significantly drop, but it was still spraying water in my face. Turning it back in the opposite direction just a bit did the trick for some reason, and the water came to an end, thank God. Knob still in place. I stood up into a sloshing of accumulated water on the kitchen floor, my toes on the way to pruney. Bean and I looked at each other and cracked up. Nothing else to do, you know? We were so flipping soaked and I remembered the wild-eyed look on her face as she came barging out of her room, door flung open, glasses askew, no clue what was going on, but ready to fight, all the same. She told me how funny I sounded shouting about “Water, water everywhere!” and let me know I was nuts for taking photos amidst the entire thing. Then she forbade me from ever rinsing off the dishes past her bedtime again.

The emergency number I called after the boyfriend still brought no emergency response. They ended up calling shortly after 8am the next morning, apologizing profusely, as they well should have, and came over to install a brand new faucet. Yay! All’s well that ends well since we simply dried off the appliances (for fear of any more “flashes like lightning”), and went to bed. Nearly all was dry by morning. Guess what renter’s insurance doesn’t cover here in Washington? Water damage. Due to the state’s tendency for excessive flooding. Glad we had no need for it!

We’d had our much overdue housewarming party just days before the faucet fiasco. So glad the faucet didn’t kaput during the party! It’d have been a little added party dynamic, yes?

The action – Wet lens, wet Bean, diligently at work