oh, what a night
I was sitting on the floor yesterday afternoon while I re-wrote a piece of educational content for the web. When I got up, I noticed that my pants were wet. I thought that maybe I had spilled water without realizing it. That wasn’t it; my water glass was full. I thought that maybe – horrors – I had lost control of my bladder, though how this could’ve happened without me realizing it was very worrisome. I checked; that wasn’t it either. I dismissed it and went back to work.
As I turned off my computer at the end of the work day, I noticed a large damp spot on the carpet. I blotted it up with a towel and dismissed it again, heading out for a rainy evening walk with the pup.
When I went upstairs again, I noticed that the spot had tripled in size, and there were two more spots. I remembered that my water pressure had been odd the day before (they turned it off while they fixed a leak in the toilet) and wondered if perhaps something had sprung a leak! I decided that I would feel better if someone looked at it, even if it wasn’t really a maintenance emergency.
Apparently there was a leak in the roof and water was flowing down inside the walls and into my bedroom. I went downstairs a few hours later and noticed paint bubbles appearing on the ceiling. By this time, I was in a constant state of giggles as I watched each new spot appear in my bedroom. Finally, I moved the couch away from the bubbles (resisting the urge to rearrange the living room at the same time), turned off my computer and moved the cords out of the line of fire (err, water), and went to bed.
They came by today to extract the water from the carpet and left me with a giant fan to help dry it. This thing is crazy. All I can do is laugh because it’s so loud that I cannot hear myself think. Really, I cannot hear anything. There could be an actual war going on in my living room and I’d be clueless. Every time I touched the bed, Atlas would literally jump because he couldn’t hear me coming. Around the middle of the afternoon, I had to turn it off for a few seconds of peace. I looked behind me and Atlas had that half-lidded blissed-out look of pleasure on his face, the one he gets when I scratch in just the right place. Apparently he was enjoying the quiet too.
Let’s hope it dries quickly! I rather miss my hearing.
[another photo for the november in b&w photo challenge over at Springtree Road]
retinal perspectives 
poor you! that would have to be stressful. though, i’ll tell ya, that fan would’ve come in handy for some white noise when V was a sleepless baby.
nice self-portrait! 🙂
Sorry, but the thought of water spots popping up all over your carpet kinda cracks me up. It wouldn’t be funny what-so-ever if you were stuck with the repairs, of course. 🙂 And a fan that is louder than your thoughts? Oh boy! Laughing again. Sorry that I’m getting humor from your mishaps- hope you don’t mind! 🙂
maya: no worries. I am not stressed at all. I am highly amused. 🙂
Laura: laugh away! I have been giggling through all of this. I find it all extremely hilarious myself, but it was hard to convey that in my post, LOL.
Great perspective with the photo. I’m glad that everything turned out all right. Giggles are good. It’d be cool if there was a way you could incorporate the humor of the situation in the photo. (I do like the photo as it is tho’.)
heidi: ooooh, good point! I took the photo the day prior. I’ll have to try for a humorous one at some point.
That sounds so not fun….I can picture the fan tho…we’ve got a large loud one in the church basement….used for what, i don’t know, but it’s there. Are your ears ringing from the noise?
I hope you fix your leak soon. I laughed at your story and about the bladder issue. When I was pregnant I to thought I had a bladder control issue but later found out it was may waters breaking and it was just a slow leak as the breaking point was behind the baby. It was funny because I keep ringing the hospital and they kept telling me it was a bladder issue and that is was quit normal in pregnancy just to try and make me feel better about it.
Maybe your insurace company should supply ear plugs with the fans
Just make sure everything is really dried out – you don’t want mold growing in the walls. Poor you and Atlas!
That is stressful, but at least they came to remedy it right away. Our neighbour’s apartment flooded 18 months ago, causing serious damage to one bathroom’s ceiling. We have filed form after form; inspectors have come and gone, pronouncing the situation “dangerous,” yet still nothing has been repaired. I’ve been documenting the decline of the ceiling’s condition via digital camera, in the battle with the insurance company (for which we pay a monthly fee to be insured in instances such as this). The French are incredibly slow to conduct repairs – unless it’s their own space that’s involved! Hope you have a more peaceful weekend.
I would have been ranting and you just kept giggling. I think of myself as a cheerful fellow but you have me beat by a mile.
oh what a great attitude you have
~ the bladder remark made me smile…
what does Atlas think of the fan?
hang in there
ELK: he does not love the noise, poor silly pup. I turned it off so we could sleep in peace. 🙂
kym: you should see me when something is “wrong” with Atlas. I am the opposite of cheerful and optimistic then, LOL. Everything else, I can deal with.
paris parfait: oh, I’m sorry. That is a very long time to wait, especially since there is the danger of mold. I hope it is all sorted out soon.
toni: that is what I am trying to make sure of. Mold is for smelly cheeses, not buildings. 😉
becca: they were. I was starting to worry about hearing loss, LOL.
I had a dream about your blog last night! I don’t remember anything about it, just that I dreamed about it.
I really like this shot. Have never seen one quite like it, and imagine it would be the angle that we as children looked up at our mothers.
Now, from the sound of your wet and noisy story I assume that you do not own this house. If you do then you qualify as the calmest homeowner on record! Seriously, my husband and I went through a similar incident when we rented a great condo years ago. It infuriated us that the owner let things slide to the point where the roof leaked, causing damage. If it had been our property we’d have been proactive and cared for it in the manner it richly deserved.
There’s a “BAT IN THE CAVE!” hahahahahaha
I know, I just couldn’t resist…..and plus you have such a great attitude about the whole ordeal, I don’t need to console you……I’ll just poke fun 😉
Oh, that’s funny. I’m glad that you were able to see the humor in the situation.
You know what else is funny? I, also, immediately thought of water breaking. Because I was sleeping when my water broke with my first one and I woke up thinking I was much too old to be wetting the bed. It took me a while to figure it out.
lydia: I hope it was a happy dream anyway. 🙂 I do not; it’s a townhouse that I rent. I like to take care of my things, though I might have to hire someone for roofs – they are very high. 🙂
ww: hahahahaha .. I can laugh at myself better than anyone, so you are welcome to poke fun, LOL
mindi: that is hilarious!
I really enjoyed reading your post today…it brought a smile to my face this early afternoon in the office (yes…I am working on a Saturday).
I feel for you been in such a situation (I recently had to replace my floor tiles and it was a complete mess) and I’d be miserable too but reading how you had managed the urge to redo your living room and imagining how your Atlas finally got some peace and quiet was really cute. 🙂 Hope things dry out soon.