Friday, May 21, 2010 - A day (around our household) that will live in infamy.

It was a rather pleasant day. I had stopped by the grocery store on the way home from work and was bringing a couple bags in from the car. When I opened the back door I heard water running. Thinking the toilet was running in the adjacent 1/2 bath I flipped on the light but saw nothing. Stepping back into the entrance there was just enough light emanating from the bathroom light to illuminate what could only be described as a 1" deep lake in my kitchen. A hose on the washing machine, in the laundry room, had sprang a small leak from a crack near the end of the hose, probably early that morning after leaving for work. The leak grew through the day, becoming a pretty good stream. Now, when I built the house I planned for such a contingency. The floor of the laundry room was tiled with a nice, big, working floor drain. But Mr. Murphy must have stopped by and made sure that the leak, instead of running down the hose and onto the floor and out the drain, formed a geyser that produced a rather impressive six-foot arc of water that ended precisely in the middle of the oak-parquet kitchen floor!

So, we got the water shut off and began the task of trying to clean up and dry up. I emptied my five-gallon wet/dry shop vac no less than 40 times after sucking up the standing water. Fans, compressed air and anything else we could find we put to use. Once we got the kitchen floor free of standing water we thought the damage had limited itself to the kitchen and dining room area. But no such luck. The room adjacent to the laundry room was our master bedroom and walk-in closet! It was dry when I first checked but now the carpet was soaking wet along the wall. The same thing happened in our living room. After working into the wee hours of the morning and cleaning and drying the best we could, we finally called it a night, thinking it might just be alright.

The next morning I stepped into the kitchen to see how things were progressing and our parquet floor looked more like a giant Jenga puzzle had collapsed. I knew then, it was not going to be alright! By the end of the day, we were beginning to develop a smell in the house that could best be described as high school locker room meets living next door to a paper mill. A call to our insurance office resulted in some very nice folks being dispatched with heavy-duty, industrial strength de-humidifiers. These were good guys and, obviously, this wasn't there first dance. They came in and took care of business and by Monday we were beginning to feel like, even though it was going to be a long haul, it was going to be okay.

Did I mention we were scheduled to have about 75 people over for a party the next weekend?

So, we embark on a long journey. We'll see where it leads...