(no subject)

[cleolinda]

The party never stops at the Jones household. Mom's downstairs hacking crankily at the icemaker in the fridge door, because it's been jammed since last night, and Sister Girl (who is not only chipmunked out after her wisdom tooth removal, but really, really pissed about it) needs a change of ice pack. I mean, she's asleep right now, it's not like she's clapping her hands and calling for the plebes to bring her the Solid Water from the North, but she has to have them changed every few hours.

Anyway, we were going to have breakfast but now she's hacking at the icemaker. I turn on the water to wash my hands, and only a thin trickle comes out. "Is there a reason we don't have any water?" I ask, because maybe she already knows about it. "I DON'T KNOW, ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME!" Okay! "Maybe they're working on the street," she adds (hack hack, stab hack). But when they work on the street, usually you just get a dry sputter. Not a steady trickle. "I just did a load of clothes, so we have water," she says (stab stab stabstabstab). Let the record show that at this point I knew something was up, but kind of didn't want to press the issue.

We're going to have cereal. We need more milk. I go downstairs to the other fridge--does anyone else do this? Whenever we've had to get a new fridge--like, twice in the history of life--we'll put the old one downstairs and the new one upstairs, and the one downstairs is for frozen food and soda. And holiday leftovers, but you get my point. So I'm downstairs in the basement/rec room/refrigerated section getting the new jug of milk and I hear this sound. Now, from the rec room, you can usually hear running water--someone's taking a shower, someone's watering the plants, someone's running the dishwasher. Except that I know that no one's outside, no one's in the shower, and the dishwasher was finished. And the sound seems to be coming not from overhead, but... garagewards.

So I open the door that leads to the garage. You know how Geena Davis opens that door in Beetlejuice and suddenly it's all Dune in there? Substitute "Niagara Falls" and you've got it. Water is pouring out of ceiling, a cascade about three feet wide, onto my mother's car and seeping out under the garage door. You know, the lifty-lifty door. Except there's a lot of water and a very small gap, so it's mostly forming a lagoon at the far end of the room.

I shut the door.

I'm telling you, I stood there for a moment and thought, I am not going to tell her about this. She'd find out eventually, wouldn't she? I wouldn't have to be the one to break the news, right? She'd have to drive somewhere eventually, right? She'd see it then! Or! Or! Even before then! She might look out the kitchen window and see a small ford in the driveway and realize that something's up! Right?

The sad thing is, I end up telling her, and not because common sense prevails. You know, the idea that eventually the reservoir is going to call up and go, "Ma'am, for the love of God, check your basement, because we're running out." The idea that time is of the essence and water doesn't grow on trees, or... some metaphor that actually makes sense, or... look, I'm still a little bit in shock, okay? No, I tell her because I realize I'm a good liar, but I'm not that good.

"Well, I've fixed the icemaker," she says. She's dumping ice back into it out of a big green bowl. There's melted ice everywhere and the dumping is very crashy-noisy. "So, uh, there's alotofwaterinthebasement," I blurt out. "WHAT?" "In the--" "WHERE?" "You're not gonna miss it." Off she goes.

So I sit down and eat my cereal. I hear the garage doors lift (Rrrrrrr), and you will forgive me for imagining a tidal SPLOOOOOOSH right after it. They--my stepfather turned right back around from work and came home--are still down there. More news as it happens, I guess.

Comments

[misia.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey. I'd say "I know the feeling" but let's just say that there's a plumber in my kitchen right now, and call it done.

Good luck.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord. Do you ever get that feeling that the house and its appliances are just turning against you? Sometimes, also including the cars in on the grand plot? And that they do this because they know that you're relatively poor?

This post brought to you by the "I cut up a godforsaken aluminum cupcake pan so I could bake them 2 at a time in the toaster oven, because the big oven died, the same day as the clothes dryer, and my father's car.) Car's running, oven is finally back, but I'm still drying my clothes on the dog's outdoor run line.

[bacardibreezer7.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of something witty to make you smile wryly, but I can't think of anything.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, don't worry about it--now that I'm sure she's not going to kill us all, it's pretty amusing.

[much-reality.livejournal.com]

Oh God. -_-

Yeah. We had a lodger who managed not to realise the taps needed turning off when you changed your mind on a bath...

Good luck. :/

[aberrantangels]

Your icon wins several internets.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Well, at least Sister Girl hasn't been inadvertently soaked. There's nothing worse than a crabby person with chipmunk-cheeks of gauze bitching incoherently like a Peanuts adult.

Good news: you got userpicked again (http://community.livejournal.com/userpicks/228642.html).

Bad news: homicidal Oklahoma would-be cannibal played Kingdom of Loathing (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/16/underwood.ap/index.html). Let's try to keep the whole "meat-as-currency" aspect of KoL on the down-low.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Again? I didn't know I'd been before.

And yeah, I heard about the KOL thing--I feel really bad for them, because taken out of context, the site sounds sooooo bad, when it's really just stick figures and pop culture references.

[celtic-songster.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that's crazy. And I feel for your sister, I had my wisdom teeth out last fall. It sucks.

That's a fantastic image, though. A waterfall made in a garage. And yes, we do the fridge thing too.

[artificialamore.livejournal.com]

aww, more crazy adventures at the cleolinda house.

*hug* i hope you get this fixed.

[edda.livejournal.com]

I am trying to think of a smartly smpathetic thing to say and failing, although my sympathy, like the Force, is indeed with you.

This particular disaster involves water; maybe it's Poolthulu making a play for power again? Just a thought.

[edda.livejournal.com]

I am also trying to type correctly and failing that as well. *sigh*

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Tell la soeur that there's a good chance that, when the swelling goes away, the absence of wisdom teeth will take her cheekbones up a notch.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ooo! That will definitely cheer her up.

[scotchwhisky.livejournal.com]

Oh, jees. I hope that gets worked out as well. I totally feel for your sister; tell her to be REALLY CAREFUL and take all her antibiotics because she does NOT want an infection. (I got one even after I took all the antibiotics, but don't tell her that.)

Good luck with this. Your life is turning into one of those really awkward sitcoms where EVERYTHING goes wrong, isn't it? Hopefully it'll all resolve itself--or y'all will resolve it, and life will be back to some semblance of normal.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the sitcom thing kind of occurred to me, too. It's like I don't even question it anymore: this kind of shit happens to us--probably because we *can* deal with it.

[bikutoria.livejournal.com]

My best busted-plumbing story is from when I was eleven years old. My mother woke up around 5 a.m. one morning upon hearing an awful wailing noise. She headed downstairs to check it out, and at the very last step, stepped into water. The entire downstairs of our house was flooded. It turns out the cat jumped on the kitchen table to commence wailing after the water hose in the washing machine broke.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Man, the closest thing I have to that is when the living room ceiling fell in--weakened by leaking pipes.

[glyphs.livejournal.com]

Yikes...I think your house is possessed and rebelling against you. I have to say, were I to open the garage door and find a lagoon complete with waterfall I think I'd shut the door, walk back upstairs and promplty do a head-desk plant. You have my sympathy...I hope the flooding is fixed soon.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You know, I have to say--the house isn't even twenty years old yet. I remember when all the houses on this street were built, because I was in second grade and my best friend was moving away (not very far, but this street was in a different elementary school district), and her family's house was, and still is, the one at the top of the street. We lived in an eighty-year-old house most of my life, and then after college we moved to this nice new one where all our homeowner problems would be over. Five years later... the house is just suddenly falling apart all at once. I have no idea.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Oh law, I'm sorry.

It must be one of those days since I get a call from my best friend this morning telling me how her hairdryer burst into flames this morning and started exploding and spinning around like those jumping jack fireworks. She now has a burnt hole in the bathroom floor and a singed pile of clothing.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

WHOA.

[sweetdaddydavid.livejournal.com]

Oh Christ, Someone go shut off the water main, asap.

Do you guys use AHS for your home warranty? that's what we do.

Sorry to usurp the topic but:

[mollyblack.livejournal.com]

That came with our house when we purchased it. It runs out after a year, is it worth extending?

[saint-kat.livejournal.com]

Wow. Having water trickle down from upstairs down for no apparent reason whatsover is rather freaky. A couple of months ago, my uncle was trying to fix the faucet in the bathtub in my mom's bathroom (it was leaking water) and for some odd reason, the water managed to trickle down into the ceiling in a downstairs room my uncle and my grandpa shared.

Needless to say, it created a shallow puddle of water on the floor (could have turned into a miniature flood, at worse). Guess who had to clean said puddle up? Yup, moi.

All that remains now is a portion of ceiling that's a bit moldy from the water leakage. A bit freaky, if you asked me.

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, sweetie, you guys are having some truly horrible luck in the household lately. Good luck!

That sounds so trite. "Sorry your house seems to be trying to blow itself up in bitty little increments. Good luck with that! Tra lalala la off I go to happy land!" and somewhere in the distance is the low "thud of a rifle being shot in the direction of my back.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh--I appreciate the sentiment, don't worry. : )

[riverchild.livejournal.com]

Crikey, it's really time you guys caught a break with that house. *thinks dry thoughts*

[koritsimou.livejournal.com]

Forgive the cussing but JesusFuckingChrist. Can the cosmos not leave you alone for oh, a nanosecond maybe to catch your breath?

How can we help you?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Eh, we're okay. My mother's got a job interview today, so cross your fingers for that, but otherwise I think we'll make out all right. : )

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Wow, good luck. I hope the repair doesn't turn out very expensive. I guess it's time to placate the plumbing-naiad (Our Lady of the PVC, Lesser Understudy to Poseidon, and Tethys' intern), because Someone is clearly offended here. Seriously, no one is more wrathful than the intern-bureaucrat of a minor deity.

In other news, wishing Sister Girl well.

[akathorne.livejournal.com]

I once lived in a crappy apartment building, and it had been raining really hard. Now, I lived on the second floor (on floor below, one above), so it was very disconcerting to see water pouring form my ceiling. After checking with my upstairs neighbor, it was determined that the roof was leaking down the walls.

Long story short, my ceiling caved in. So make sure that your garage ceiling is ok! I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, or your cars to be damaged because of the water.

Trust me, these things happen. And happen. And happen...

[mollyblack.livejournal.com]

That happened to us in an apartment we lived in when we lived in Long Beach, CA. Great proximity to the ocean (we could see it from the street outside our apartment) but total slum landlord.

First the walls started leaking rusty water (you know, the kind that looks like diluted blood) and then the ceiling got into the act. Right near the center where the light was (it was a very small apartment).

Suffice to say we moved as soon as our lease ended due to the total terror that place kept us in.

On a more recent note, when we purchased our new house apparently one of the toilets didn't have a proper seal and it leaked all over the floor, going through the ceiling of our living room. Luckily we caught it in time, cleaned and dried everything up, fixed the seal, and once the ceiling dried bought this nifty sealer that's specifically for ceilings that have undergone such a trauma.

[tifaria.livejournal.com]

When I was in the second grade, we got a huge amount of rain one morning. As soon as my Mom got my brother and I to school, the principal sent us all home because the water was up to the classroom doors and slowly seeping in. When we got home, my brother and I went to the basement to play and discovered that it was underwater. It had something to do with our gutters, but I forget exactly what. One other time, our garage ceiling collapsed for apparrently no reason (well, I suppose it was old). It was kind of funny seeing Christmas decorations all over the cars, in a weird way.

I hope things get better. Sometimes it seems like houses are alive themselves, and every once in a while they get this defiant attitude, like they're trying to say, "I'm just not going to do what you want for a while, because I can."

[sawcat.livejournal.com]

as to the fridge thing, we have that. Actually my parents have a stand alone freezer and now a mini-fridge (like the small wine ones) for that purpose.

if Sister Girl runs out of gauze and still needs some for the bleeding, I have one word for her: tampons. They work very well if her dentist didn't give enough gause like mine did.

[georgie21.livejournal.com]

Hee, that's actually a very good idea. Also, I love the pic!

[virtuistic.livejournal.com]

Yowza. Both you and I had horrible water experiences this weekend, both involving going down to the second fridge (yeah, my family totally does that too.) I walked past our laundry room because the second fridge is in the garage, and when I went down I thought the washer must've been on. On my way back in, however, it became increasingly clear that the washer could not have been making that noise. It sounded like a billion alka seltzer tablets, so I opened the door and there is a little drain but it was utterly failing to drain and all of the neatly sorted laundry was getting soaked and it was almost to the carpet line of the actual basement so I cursed audibly, grabbed the mop, and tried to bail out/sponge out the laundry room before my mother came back from the grocery store because she had forgotten, of all things, to buy a ham. I had to enlist the help of my brother because I was fairly confident that it was going to flood our entire basement.

Thankfully, with the two of us working on it we got it down a bit and then the drain finally kicked in. I told my Dad about and he just shrugged at me. Honestly...

Well...Happy Monday!

[georgie21.livejournal.com]

Oh God. That doesn't sound very awesome. Our basement flooded once, it was definetly not pretty. Well, the good news is, it has to get better soon, right? And when it gets better it will get a lot better. Unless I'm jinxing you by saying that, in which case, I'm sorry!

Also, I have a second fridge in my basement too. The people at Sears screwed something up bigtime, so my dad got them to give us a fridge.

[fishsanwitt]

Yikes. I hope it's fixed soon. That's just terrible.