Rub-A-Dub-Dub, My Kitchen's A Tub

Wow. Just to start, I'll say wow.

Saturday night I had a movie night with a friend of mine. Self-explanatory- we watched movies. I didn't leave his house until about 1:30 or so in the morning and went home. I wasn't quite tired yet (I have borderline insomnia or something) so I threw in another movie at my place. I like the sound of the TV on low when I sleep, it's comforting for me. Maybe because I don't hear all the other sounds, night sounds. My landlady walking around, the cat upstairs jumping around, birds flying into their nests in the roof, etc. It takes my mind off these other random noises so that I can just tune out the TV sounds and fall asleep. I made the mistake of putting in a movie that I haven't seen for a while, so of course I had to watch the whole thing. When it was over, I put it on commentary and played it again. I was able to fall asleep during this phase.

Then I woke up in the morning. Still sleepy-eyed and blurry-eyed, I took a step into my kitchen. Splash. What? Splash splash. I had a swimming pool in my kitchen! Now, when I asked for a swimming pool in my letter to Santa last Christmas, I didn't mean to it to be in my kitchen. I guess I should've been more specific.

So I wandered around to see where this was coming from. My kitchen sink? No. The hallway? No. The ceiling? No. The walls? No. I opened my door to the outside, and a tidal wave of water came careening in to fill in the unfinished pool on my floor. I live in the basement apartment of a house. There is a little drain at the bottom of the concrete steps going down to my apartment. And apparently, this drain was gushing out water. So not only is it water, it's brown water. And the leaves that had gathered on the ground were picked up by this water. And the dog food bag on the floor by the refrigerator joined the ride- it disintigrated and the dog food took a swim. ALL the dog food.

(Not really my apartment above, but close)

My kitchen is a swimming pool. A public swimming pool for leaves, mud, dog food, etc. Disgusting! I called Billy who came to get Sunni. (Thank you, Billy!!!) My landlady wasn't answering her door, though I could hear her up there. (Note to any landlords who live above their tenant(s) in an older house without soundproofing- They KNOW when you are home.....) No way was I staying in my apartment filled with drain puke. So I threw on some shorts and a tank top, grabbed my flip-flops and purse, and waded through the juicy landfill to get out of there. Knocked on my landlady's door one last time before just writing her a note, and she actually answered. Imagine that! Anyways, so she decided to get a plunger. Like that was going to work. She handed me the plunger (stating that I know where the drain is better than she does) and asked me to try to unclog it. Now, I'm not a stupid woman. Hard to believe, I know. Heehee. First off, it's not MY responsibility to unclog this drain since I'm the tenant and she's the landlady. Secondly, I realized with the amount of water, a small little toilet plunger was NOT going to unclog this drain. So I pretended to give it an attempt and then pretended to give up. She said that she was going to make some calls. I gave her my cell phone number and left. I went to my favorite coffee shop and sipped an iced chai while reading my book. Landlady called and said that she had some guys coming with a water vaccum/pump thing. I asked her to call me when it was taken care of so that I could start cleaning up the stuff that got wet in my apartment.

Michael woke up from his nap and I went over there for coffee. We hung out for a while, had dinner, etc. Landlady called and said that they were going to be pumping all night since the drain was still gushing, and that a plumber was coming tomorrow (which is now today) to snake the drain and see what the problem is. So that left me homeless. Sweetheart Michael said that I could stay at his house, even though he was going to work and wouldn't be home until tomorrow morning. (He drives truck, so for example- he will leave Sunday night and get back on Tuesday morning.) So I watched some movies with his dog after he left, and fell asleep.

Still no word from the landlady today. I will give her a call in a bit to see what the status is since I'll have to start an immediate clean-up to avoid mold and all that fun stuff. However, I left my apartment in short shorts and a tank top. I can't exactly where that to work. We are casual, but not THAT casual. So I had to make a stop at Wally-World this morning for some cheap pants to wear. And coffee cream. Though the cream has nothing to do with the flood.

So there you have it, ladies and gentleman. If you feel like taking a dip in the pool, let me know and I'll invite you over. It may not be fixed today, meaning I may be homeless yet again tonight. Exciting! So Rub-a-dub-dub, my kitchen's a tub.

Much Love!