for whom the gong tolls. part 1

Sometimes, even through all the stress, I wonder when the next ball will drop. Or thing to break. Or gong to gong. You know what I mean? Something hasn't gone terribly awry for quite some time, I'll think to myself. Could things be looking up?

And then I'll walk into the food storage room, like I did last week, and see a puddle on the ground. This won't alarm me too too much seeing as it isn't the first time we have spotted a puddle on the ground in the basement.

The roof leaks. Remember?

The funny thing about the roof leaking is that except for the time it flooded the back bedroom two days before we moved in, it only ever leaks into the basement. Puddles.

It's like God is saying "things have to go wrong but I'll keep them from going so wrong that you lose your mind." You know?

So when I saw the puddle my mind immediately went to the place where it curses the broken roof and the storm from the day before that obviously blew the poly away hence making my basement a splash park.

I texted the man. "There is a puddle in the basement." I didn't receive a text back, I didn't need to. I did, however, need to do a crap load of laundry since in the middle of this small pond was sitting my sleeping bags and extra quilts and comforters.

Later that evening, after he was home and kids were mostly tucked in bed I grabbed a caffeine free diet pepsi and went to settle in for a couple of hours of mind numbing, real world escaping tv. Before that though, I went to check the puddle.

It was ten times the size. Of course it was.

"Daaaaaaaarrrrrrrccccccccceeeeeee" I called from the outer edges of sanity. "Have you seen the puddle yet?" I heard him come stomping down the stairs. He stomped, I guess because there was maybe a teensy weensy bit of concern in my voice.

I watched him look up and down and all the way around, trying to find where the problem was. He said to me "have you checked the furnace room?"

"Um, no." I try not to look in the dark hidden recesses of my house for fear of what disaster lurks there. I walked to the furnace room, flicked the light, and spotted another huge puddle.

"Yep, puddle." I say cheerfully as if acting happy about it might make the puddle less angry and therefore less likely to cost money to fix.

The man started his 'bull in the china shop' thing. The thing where he storms around, not mad, just loud and aggressive like. Gettin' 'er done.

"Is there anything I can do?" I whisper with such a look of demure, helpless, feminine uselessness that no one could deny my presence there was completely unnecessary. After all, I really just wanted to watch tv, remember?

"Nope, I got it."

He shop vac'd that place dry. He was loud but he was taking care of business and we would never begrudge him that. After awhile he came and planted himself next to me in front of the tv.

"The valve on the hot water tank is broken. I fixed it and the water is not leaking anymore."

Okay, I think to myself. That's not so bad. 10 loads of laundry and a man who knows how to fix stuff and the universe it set right. We have survived another storm.

Or have we?

Stay tuned. Tomorrow? Part 2.