Noah - I hear ya brother!

 Ahhh . . . remember this? As of that moment in time, that was our FIFTH flood in this here town. We've only lived here 6 years. Well, I guess the Powers That Be wanted us to have one more just to keep us on our toes. OR they just wanted to give me something to blog about. 

A recap of my evening last Wednesday:

I was in our front room checking on the girls. Maddie was being a little whiny and so she wouldn't let me put her down. I had to run back into my bathroom to get something and just about landed on my toosh because the floor was soaking wet. I turned on the light and there was water all over the place and headed down the hall. I wasn't too worried at first because I thought it was just a toilet overflowing, but as Maddie wouldn't let me put her down I had a hard time getting the plunger to do its job. Anyway, I finally had to set the screaming Mad girl down to plunge away. As I'm plunging I realize that water is pumping out from BENEATH the toilet. Crap, crap, crappity, crap. Not only is it coming out from under the toilet, but it is now streaming out.

I shove a few towels at the door of the bathroom to dam it up, pick up our now soaking rug in the hall, run back for the screaming Maddie and call Ameri. As I'm explaining to Ameri that we are once again flooding (he's downtown and can't do anything about it), Maddie proceeds to throw-up all over me. Priceless. Nevertheless, I keep my cool, explain the situation to Ameri, hang up, start to change Maddie and myself and head back to the bathroom to check the water. As I come back to inspect, the water has broken over my dam, poured out into the hall again and into my closet this time. Here I insert a word stronger than "crap".

Setting a half-naked Maddie down, I scramble for more towels and call Ameri again to tell him it's more serious than I thought - please call a plumber. He tries to get me to go and turn off the emergency water valve (we know where it is now because of the last flood). I try to explain to him that Maddie is half-naked, still throwing up and the water is a river now. He again implores me to go turn off the water. I tell him I already have in the bathroom and I am in the middle of a crisis - will you please call the plumber. Back and forth we go, he doesn't call the plumber because it is after hours and I prepare to head down to the garage to turn off the water. Maddie is still crying, still half-naked, Charley is following me around like a puppy and I'm fuming. I go back into the bathroom to create another useless dam and hear my neighbor plunging - yep the walls are that thin. I think it's the upstairs neighbor so I head up there to tell her I'm turning off our water. Girls in tow, I run up there and she's not home. I hear my next-door neighbor come out of her house and I yell down at her to ask her if she's had plumbing issues. She says yes and she's called the plumber! YAY! We both head down to the garage and there is water pouring out of the pipes below our apartments. Sewage water.

Long story not as long as it could be, I don't end up shutting the water off in the garage because it wouldn't have made a difference anyway, I continue the process of damming and mopping the water, Maddie throws up one more time, Charley got to watch more TV than is good for her and Ameri got home just in time to clean up the mess. At its worst, there was about an inch of standing sewage water in our bathroom which seeped under the wall into our other bathroom. Fortunately, we have all tile in our apartment and, as it was something that affected 3 different apartments, we don't have to pay for the damage it caused! The other good thing is that we were still supposed to be in Utah this last week, but changed our plans last minute. Remember those "Powers That Be" that I was talking about earlier? Well, though we've flooded several times, we've always be home when they've happened - when usually we wouldn't be. Blessings come in all different forms and I, though I complain about the mess, am grateful that they're never what they could have been!

We purchased a small wet/dry vac that night because I just know that there will be another flood in our future. In fact, I may die in one. Just sayin'. BUT, my friend Sherri says that the minute you buy preventative measures, you more than likely won't have that problem again. I say great! It's the cheapest insurance I've ever bought toward future disasters. Keep your fingers crossed folks!