Wading in the Velvet Sea

My panic set in, and the panic was something like, “the basement’s flooding as we speak, oh dear Lord”. Now, I say this, but remember, I don’t actually 100% believe these things: I think there’s actually some less bad explanation that will make my worry seem foolish and silly in hindsight. Maybe there’s a hose on nearby, maybe say one house over, and that my perspective is merely skewed as I increase my pace towards my apartment.

But no, in this case, I was 100% right: the water was coming from my basement. Now, there wasn’t a pure flood going on, mercifully, but water was coming from about 3 pipes, in various forms of drip ranging from “steady” to “world’s longest and largest pee”, with a nice, 1’’ pool about 20’ long and 3’ wide heading downward towards the drain that ends up, you guessed it, underneath my porch.

Now, that morning, I’d turned the heat on the apartment for the first time this year, and if I’ve got this right, 24 hours later, water went into places it shouldn’t have, and the system essentially tried to drain itself. Self-preservation is something I applaud on a normal basis, but not in this case. The system should have sucked it up like a man, not wimp out like a wuss. So, thus began the long process of making things right, a process I’m pretty sure by now is finally over. (Hear that, God? Over. As in, I’ve paid for my sins, I’d like to think, thankee kindly.)

First step: turn off all water pipes. I flip two switches above the heater, and the flow stops. Everythig in the basement’s elevated, except for a few things, so the damage on my side isn’t bad. I can tell that water’s gone onto the neighbor’s side as well, and I’m praying their stuff isn’t damaged (in the end, mercifully, it wasn’t). I push the puddles out towards the drain, get fans going, and call the landlord. I don’t hear from him for a while, and by the time he’s called, things go from bad to worse.

Mrs. Me comes home soon after the fans are going, and I am showing her what’s happened. We’re upstairs, planning the next steps, when all of a sudden, a groan starts emanating from a radiator. And then, another groan, from another radiator. It’s as if the radiators are in an a cappella group and they are tuning to a pitch pipe or something. I am a bit frazzled, but whatever. The heat’s now been turned off, all we have to do is wait for the landlord to call.

About five minutes later, another groaning. I am getting mad now (moving on from “scared sh%tless”), and that’s when I go over and yell at the radiator. Classy, I know. But that’s how I saw what happened next.

Out of the small nozzle that usually releases hot air, a spray of water soaked the surrounding 18’’ of flooring.

Uh oh.

I send Mrs. Me around to see what’s gotten wet, and to turn the nozzles down to minimum pressure. Don’t hear anything for about thirty seconds, and then I hear something said in a tone I knew meant something was terribly wrong. Not as strong as “My god, a dead body!” but miles above “Leggo My Eggo!”

“Honey? Man Room, NOW!”

The “man room” is our second bedroom, where every tech gadget I own resides. It’s a mess of 32’’ LCD TV, surround sound, DVD, Playstation 2, and wireless routers. And it was now also the scene of a fine pool of water encasing a good portion of these things.

I freeze. I literally just freeze. I can’t move. Mrs. Me bolts for paper towels. I stay frozen, muttering something a bit more vulgar than “There’s no place like home” over and over again. The water pressure was not only relieving itself in the basement, but through the radiators itself. If this were a Peter Jackson movie, this would be the part where everything goes into slo-mo and the only thing you hear is a string section and an alto-singing boy. Needless to say, Defcon 1 has now been achieved.

So now I the stuff’s been dried off but I am worried about more mini-geysers, so I don’t know what still works. The landlord calls, and he can’t come, because this is the one night of the week he’s out-of-state. We talk over what we think is the problem, and so for the next hour-plus, it’s me and Mrs. Me and a lot of buckets of water as we try and drain out the system. Lots of painful, backbreaking work. Did I mention we haven’t had dinner by this point, and it’s almost ten? We’re a model of awesome at this point.

We can tell the pressure in the system’s going down, finally, and we check upstairs, and lo, the geysers have ceased, and the fans had pretty much dried out the basement, and so it was onto trying out the electronics in the man room, and by some mercy I’ll never, ever understand, everything worked perfectly. I’ve never been so happy to see the Barefoot Contessa as I was to see all 32’’ of her on my TV. Life was finally turning around. I tell Mrs. Me that I’m taking her our for food, right after we take a shower.

I go to turn on the water.

Only, no water comes out.

I think right around here I blacked out and went from Nikki to Jessica, if I were said character in “Heroes”. Which I’m not, but, you know, apt simile here. I blacked out for a minute or two due to rage and disbelief. Back on the phone to the landlord, with Mrs. Me doing the duties while I used language in the basement that would have made Lenny Bruce blush.

Takes about 45 minutes and a few calls around to end up right in the same position: no access to the hot water. Cold water? We’re rockin’ it. But the shower is non-functional, and all I can think is that the hour we spent draining the pipes somehow drained the hot water tank, even though I knew in my heart of hearts they weren’t connected. But I’m not a handyman, I couldn’t be sure of anything except I was tired, cranky, smelly, dirty, and hungry enough to eat a Lean Pocket. Yup, THAT hungry, people.

The long and short of it was that when I turned off the water pipes initially, I turned off one too many, and turning that switch restored everything to it’s full and rightful place. Showers could be taken, shaving could happen, washing clothes was once again an option. Completely and utterly exhausted, I sit on the couch, sipping my well-earned Sam Adams Octoberfest, while Mrs. Me dropped into a coma in the bedroom.

Somehow, because the Powers That Be weren’t done with me yet, I developed insomnia via beer. Maybe I got a batch of Octoberfest with ginseng in it or something, but damn, this was ridiculous. Don’t get to bed until waaaaay later than I wanted, but hey, least nothing was leaking, spitting, or dripping anymore.

So you can imagine my surprise when I got woken up for work today by Mrs. Me saying, “OK, don’t freak, but…”

No need for coffee. Even with only a scant few hours sleep, I was up like a bullet. And sure enough, two pipes that had been suspect the night before were acting up again. I called into work, explaining the situation on voicemail, and called the landlord. More draining, more bucket dumping, waiting for the plumber to come to verify this situation was finally freakin’ solved. Within a little bit, the dripping stopped, thanks to three more buckets of draining, but that didn’t stop me from thirty-minute trips down to the basement to assess the situation all day today. Lemmee tell ya: no Stairmaster needed for me this week: forget Suzanne Somers, I am the Thighmaster at this point, and my butt hasn’t been this taut since I was on tour with “Lord of the Dance”.

So now, with tons of stress but luckily minimal physical damage, I write to you now of the travails that come with living in a charming but quirky old apartment here in the Boston ‘burbs. Considering how this COULD have turned out, I feel blessed, but I would feel tons more blessed had this not freakin’ happened in the first place. Guess this should serve as my weekly reaffirmation that as much as I complain, things could always be a lot, lot, lot worse. And this episode also proved that my paranoia is sometimes well-founded, so like, that’s something positive, I suppose.

But enough about all that. Only got in one Sam Adams Octoberfest last night. I think I’ll raise a few more than that tonight. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen now?

Wait.

Don’t answer that.