The Prophet and The Flood

We had The Great Flood yesterday, and as proof of my unrighteousness, we were not sufficiently warned by god. Our last little flood served, I guess, as a warning. Last time our water heater died, taking the padding from the carpet in the hallway and much of the bedroom with it. This time, the hot water shower pipes from upstairs broke. I had just settled down to watch Oprah (She had teased me with a commercial saying, "One of every two women die of..." and I had to see what one of two women died of. I heard a funny dripping sound, and followed it to the bedroom where the ceiling was leaking. I called management and they said they'd get someone right out. The maintenance guy did come, he checked our water heater, which was fine, but water was pouring down in the water heater closet from upstairs. He checked both of the water heaters upstairs...bone dry. That's when he told me that this was beyond his scope of practice. This was a job for....a plumber. He left, and I was stuck finding anything that would serve as a bucket (two buckets, 4 garbage cans and Grandma Hanna's round cake tupperware) which I strategically placed to catch as much of the water as I could. Water was pouring out of the smoke detector, which made the alarm go off, but I was too afraid to try and take the battery out for fear of getting electricuted. This is when I called Steve in tears and asked him to please come home from work NOW. He came home and helped me bail water and move furniture.

In the mean time, Dante had already gone to his preferred panic room--the bathroom, and I had closed him in to keep him safe and out of the way. Moose, however, had run to his default spot, under the bed, and was discovered there when we were forced to move the bed. (The water-logged ceiling looked like it was ready to come down). I put Moose in the bathroom as well, with their food and water and litter boxes, but when I stepped into the bathroom again, there were no kitties to be seen. I guess they felt a little too exposed, even closed safely in the bathroom, and they had both opened the doors to the cabinet under the sink and hidden inside. (The doors swung shut behind them leaving no trace of kitty to be found--the perfect hiding place!)

Three hours after the discovery of the leak, a plumber finally arrived, and had to drill a hole in the wall of the apartment above us to fix the leak. Although he was able to fix the pipes, nothing could be done about the water which had already escaped the pipes. We just had to continue bailing water until it stopped dripping. When all was said and done, the bedroom, Steve's closet, the water heater closet, the hallway, the bathroom, and the kitchen had flooded.

Looking on the bright side, it was a good thing that Oprah had teased me into skipping school to watch her show, otherwise we wouldn't have discovered the leak until an hour later, and my closet, at least, would also have been flooded. (Maybe Oprah was the Prophet that god sent to warn me of The Great Flood!)