Pretty lousy week so far. It started with some relatively minor annoyances, and then our basement flooded.
On Sunday, I bought a bunch of tofu for dinner without realizing the expiration date was Christmas. I opened it later that night and threw up a little bit in my mouth. I had no idea that tofu -- boring, flavorless tofu -- could pack such a rancid punch. But it can. It did. It was twenty times worse than any spoiled milk I've ever smelled. Plus, I touched it, and it was all slimy and it chunked off between my fingers and ... yuck. I dumped it all down the garbage disposal, but the scent lingered in the air, on the knife, on the cutting board, on my hands. I felt like I needed to scrub the kitchen with lye, and scour my hands with a bar of soap Howard Hughes style. I had to throw out almost all the other packages too, and I just bought them that morning. Apparently the store didn't notice the expiration date either. Annoying.
Actually, that rotten tofu is still sitting outside in the garbage bin on our curb. Why? Because nobody collected our trash on Wednesday, our trash day. Why not? No idea. Just nobody came. Recycling came, but not trash. I know it's not our fault because it's everybody on our block. S called the city, and they told her only that our trash would be picked up in 48 hours. That was on Thursday morning, so they still have tomorrow morning to make good on their word. I'm not confident.
Some slippers I ordered arrived this week. My parents bought S and I a gift card to Amazon, so I decided to buy something I normally wouldn't buy myself, something pampering-y to make it more gift-like, so I bought a pair of high end (well, high-ish end) slippers. I wear size 11.5; a pair of 9s arrived. And they were the wrong style. The receipt verified that this was indeed Amazon's mistake. Stupid private sector, they bungle everything.
I got a crossword puzzle submission denied by the New York Times this week. Usually I take this in stride, but this one stung a bit more because I thought it was really good.
Then the big one happened. On Wednesday night I was awoken by somebody trying to open our baby gate to get upstairs. It was S's friend P who was in town from New York for work and staying in our basement for a few nights. I got up to open the gate for him, and he said, "Something happened downstairs, there is water everywhere!" Instantly I knew what happened. We have a pipe that freezes when it gets cold, and it burst. I've heard that this is something that happens, but I've never actually witnessed it. Or I should say that I had actually never witnessed it, because now I have.
S, P, and I rushed downstairs -- the water was about ankle high -- and I closed the main water valve to the house. I'm actually slightly proud of myself for knowing how to do this. For normal people this isn't a big deal, but for me and my awful handyman skills it is. It's like when I taught community college, and a student would feel pride for successfully adding fractions. I did the factotum equivalent of finding a common denominator. I also cut my finger in my haste to close the valve, so I have a little war wound for my efforts.
Once the water was off, we didn't know what to do next, so we did what people do when they don't know what to do. We Googled. We Googled like the wind. We called every emergency plumber we could find online, but nobody could come out. We called our insurance company, but they couldn't do anything more than take information. So there wasn't really much to do. We salvaged what we could from the basement, shut off the electricity down there, and went back to sleep.
Well, we tried to sleep anyway. Restful slumber doesn't come easily when you know an entire floor of your house is fucked. Plus, we turned the heat off since the furnace is in the basement, so we had to get Lil' S, because his room gets exceptional cold without heat. I quickly discovered that three in our bed, one of whom is a 16-month old who either tosses and turns all night or bores his body into your back, just doesn't work for me. P was in the guest bed, so I took the sofa. I believe I slept three hours total. And as luck (or lack thereof) would have it. I had to give a presentation at work the next day -- something that happens about ten times a year total. (It went fine, though. It would be better for my story if I bombed, but I didn't.)
The damage isn't too bad, all things considered. The water was mostly drained. I don't know where -- I don't see a drain anywhere on our basement floor -- but it drained somehow, so, hey, I'll take it. It didn't get high enough to get into our TV or DVD player or anything like that. In this regard we were lucky P was staying in our basement. If he wasn't, man, who knows when we would've noticed it. Although what would've been really lucky is if it happened in the middle of the day while I was downstairs, or better yet, not at all.
We got a plumber out here yesterday to fix the pipe and reroute it so that it won't freeze anymore. The main thing is our carpet. It's soaked. We are on a waiting list for every business in the DC area that does flood cleanup, but the earliest appointment we could get is Wednesday. Because of the cold spell a bunch of pipes burst apparently. One company told us they had 250 calls in a night. So cleanup is still going to take a while. Then there is the cost. I'm cautiously optimistic our insurance company will reimburse us for most of it, but our deductible is $1,000. So that's a grand down the drain (get it?). Whatever, I'll gladly pay to get our basement back in order.
Well, that's been my week so far. And it's not over yet. In fact, the Seahawks play a playoff game tomorrow -- they are heavily favored -- so a loss would really push this over the edge for me as an all-time shit week. On the other hand, a win would be a consolation -- a very small one, but a consolation nonetheless. So let's do it, 'Hawks! Forget the dying little boy with Seahawks posters plastered all over his hospital room; forget the special-needs kid who wears a Russell Wilson jersey everyday. Forget them; think of me. Think of every thirty-something, upper-middle class whitey, who has quite a good life overall, but has had a real bummer of a week. Win this game for us, damn it! We need it.
Until next time ...
On Sunday, I bought a bunch of tofu for dinner without realizing the expiration date was Christmas. I opened it later that night and threw up a little bit in my mouth. I had no idea that tofu -- boring, flavorless tofu -- could pack such a rancid punch. But it can. It did. It was twenty times worse than any spoiled milk I've ever smelled. Plus, I touched it, and it was all slimy and it chunked off between my fingers and ... yuck. I dumped it all down the garbage disposal, but the scent lingered in the air, on the knife, on the cutting board, on my hands. I felt like I needed to scrub the kitchen with lye, and scour my hands with a bar of soap Howard Hughes style. I had to throw out almost all the other packages too, and I just bought them that morning. Apparently the store didn't notice the expiration date either. Annoying.
Actually, that rotten tofu is still sitting outside in the garbage bin on our curb. Why? Because nobody collected our trash on Wednesday, our trash day. Why not? No idea. Just nobody came. Recycling came, but not trash. I know it's not our fault because it's everybody on our block. S called the city, and they told her only that our trash would be picked up in 48 hours. That was on Thursday morning, so they still have tomorrow morning to make good on their word. I'm not confident.
Some slippers I ordered arrived this week. My parents bought S and I a gift card to Amazon, so I decided to buy something I normally wouldn't buy myself, something pampering-y to make it more gift-like, so I bought a pair of high end (well, high-ish end) slippers. I wear size 11.5; a pair of 9s arrived. And they were the wrong style. The receipt verified that this was indeed Amazon's mistake. Stupid private sector, they bungle everything.
I got a crossword puzzle submission denied by the New York Times this week. Usually I take this in stride, but this one stung a bit more because I thought it was really good.
Then the big one happened. On Wednesday night I was awoken by somebody trying to open our baby gate to get upstairs. It was S's friend P who was in town from New York for work and staying in our basement for a few nights. I got up to open the gate for him, and he said, "Something happened downstairs, there is water everywhere!" Instantly I knew what happened. We have a pipe that freezes when it gets cold, and it burst. I've heard that this is something that happens, but I've never actually witnessed it. Or I should say that I had actually never witnessed it, because now I have.
S, P, and I rushed downstairs -- the water was about ankle high -- and I closed the main water valve to the house. I'm actually slightly proud of myself for knowing how to do this. For normal people this isn't a big deal, but for me and my awful handyman skills it is. It's like when I taught community college, and a student would feel pride for successfully adding fractions. I did the factotum equivalent of finding a common denominator. I also cut my finger in my haste to close the valve, so I have a little war wound for my efforts.
[I don't get it.]
Once the water was off, we didn't know what to do next, so we did what people do when they don't know what to do. We Googled. We Googled like the wind. We called every emergency plumber we could find online, but nobody could come out. We called our insurance company, but they couldn't do anything more than take information. So there wasn't really much to do. We salvaged what we could from the basement, shut off the electricity down there, and went back to sleep.
Well, we tried to sleep anyway. Restful slumber doesn't come easily when you know an entire floor of your house is fucked. Plus, we turned the heat off since the furnace is in the basement, so we had to get Lil' S, because his room gets exceptional cold without heat. I quickly discovered that three in our bed, one of whom is a 16-month old who either tosses and turns all night or bores his body into your back, just doesn't work for me. P was in the guest bed, so I took the sofa. I believe I slept three hours total. And as luck (or lack thereof) would have it. I had to give a presentation at work the next day -- something that happens about ten times a year total. (It went fine, though. It would be better for my story if I bombed, but I didn't.)
The damage isn't too bad, all things considered. The water was mostly drained. I don't know where -- I don't see a drain anywhere on our basement floor -- but it drained somehow, so, hey, I'll take it. It didn't get high enough to get into our TV or DVD player or anything like that. In this regard we were lucky P was staying in our basement. If he wasn't, man, who knows when we would've noticed it. Although what would've been really lucky is if it happened in the middle of the day while I was downstairs, or better yet, not at all.
[I get it. But it's not funny.]
We got a plumber out here yesterday to fix the pipe and reroute it so that it won't freeze anymore. The main thing is our carpet. It's soaked. We are on a waiting list for every business in the DC area that does flood cleanup, but the earliest appointment we could get is Wednesday. Because of the cold spell a bunch of pipes burst apparently. One company told us they had 250 calls in a night. So cleanup is still going to take a while. Then there is the cost. I'm cautiously optimistic our insurance company will reimburse us for most of it, but our deductible is $1,000. So that's a grand down the drain (get it?). Whatever, I'll gladly pay to get our basement back in order.
Well, that's been my week so far. And it's not over yet. In fact, the Seahawks play a playoff game tomorrow -- they are heavily favored -- so a loss would really push this over the edge for me as an all-time shit week. On the other hand, a win would be a consolation -- a very small one, but a consolation nonetheless. So let's do it, 'Hawks! Forget the dying little boy with Seahawks posters plastered all over his hospital room; forget the special-needs kid who wears a Russell Wilson jersey everyday. Forget them; think of me. Think of every thirty-something, upper-middle class whitey, who has quite a good life overall, but has had a real bummer of a week. Win this game for us, damn it! We need it.
Until next time ...
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