We woke on Easter morning to discover the Mississippi River flowing through our basement. I joke. It wasn’t really the Mississippi. It was more like a murky, disease-infested creek. What a mess! It was Easter! Hath God no sympathy? No! No! He doesn’t! I believe he is punishing me for my lifetime of wrong-doing. I so should have been a nicer person. Karma: It’s a total bitch.
While I don’t fully believe God is punishing me, I am starting to question some things. First, this was totally my fault. I jinxed us. Things are going well (were), financially and life is good. I SHOULD NOT HAVE OPENED MY MOUTH. I should know better. If you speak of it, the shit will hit the fan. Literally.
Second, I realize and fully recognize there are way worse things than a flood in one’s basement. I am glad it was not worse. People are dying. There is disease, poverty, war and a million other horrible things happening in our world. I am thankful for all that I have. So, before you bethink me an awful person, let me just clarify that.
But, nobody wants to wake up to a flood, especially, on a holiday. We have a child! She had a basket to find! We made cinnamon buns from scratch the night before! We just had to bake them for 30 minutes and have a wonderful, sugar-filled morning breakfast which would pair fabulously with super-strong coffee. You want to know what those cinnamon buns tasted like post flood discovery? They tasted like bitter resentment. Screw you, house! Why do you have to do this to us now and ruin our holiday? Christ rose! You didn’t have to do this! At least not today!
I thought maybe the buns would make us feel better. False. We sat around, eating them, pondering what the hell we should do with the mess in our basement. We wanted to know what it was. We wondered what could have caused it. Bread said he suspected our water heater had given out. He mentioned, about a month ago, we needed a new one. This would have been awesome scenario as it would have been clean water. As I mentioned before, in our home, you can’t speak of something without making it fall apart. Last month, Bread said, “Oh! Our Lazy Susan is cracked. Be careful! I will have to fix it.” I shit you not, that night, as I was reading in bed at one in the morning there was a great crash from downstairs. I feared we were being burgled! No! It turns out Suze fell apart and our herbs, spices, oils and various other pounds of cooking miscellanea decided that was the time to fall. It scared the hell out of both of us. Bread was prancing about our home in just his underwear; it was something straight out of a sitcom.
Once he headed to the basement to handle the flood, it took Bread all of maybe five minutes to deduce it was not our water heater causing the flood. It was, in fact, a drain backup. Now, while there were no turds visible, there was really no way to deduce whether the stuff in our basement was clean or dirty water. My germophobia was on high-alert. Remove all shoes! Do not touch anything! Wash! Wash! Wash!
Eventually, the plumber showed up and declared it was, indeed, clean water. God bless Jesus! I could not handle actual human waste in my home anywhere outside of say, the toilet or perhaps my child’s pants. And, maybe sometimes Bread’s pants! But, I’m not in charge of that when it happens! Ha!
Okay, so the plumber told us it was clean water. Ground water is actually what he called it. We were able to carry on with our day. My mom came to pick up Bird earlier in the day so as she could still have a nice holiday. I went to pick her up while Bread began the clean up. The poor guy spent his entire Easter Sunday trying to clean up the disaster. He has been working 70 hour work weeks. This was his first full weekend off in probably a month. I felt bad. Did I mention how much my husband rocks?
After Bird was tucked in and coming off her chocolate- bunny- induced- sugar- high, I went to help Bread. I wasn’t too grossed out since the plumber informed us of the water being clean and all. And, why should my husband have to deal with that all on his own. Eventually, we called it a day, showered and went to bed hoping for a better day tomorrow. Meaning: the insurance people will be in and they can give us the okay to call folks to fix this.
We were deluded for believing the insurance people would help in any way, shape or form. After several phone calls, a meeting with an adjuster and lots of nasty words, we now know if they are not covering anything. I suppose this was just one of life’s lessons. We now have a new insurance provider, in case you were wondering about that.
We had to take matters into our own hands. We called a restoration company. They, in turn, informed us the water was not actually clean. It’s what they call “grey water.” This means, while it was not actually raw sewage, it was, by no means, clean because it has been in contact with actual raw sewage. Vomit. Barf. Oh, my God, why didn’t I wear a hazmat suit?
Upon reflecting on this, I gather when one’s occupation is a plumber, you probably see some nasty shit (pun intended). So, when you walk into someone’s home, it doesn’t smell and there are no actual floating logs, you probably do consider it clean. We, on the other hand, have a different standard. I am not, and never plan to be, used to this. I need to give kudos to all the plumbers out there. You rock and are, most certainly, underpaid. For the record, our plumber rocked. He was great and only charged us $250! It was Easter!
So, the restoration company recommended we replace the carpeting and pad in our basement. It did not take much arm twisting for this germ- obsessed person to agree to that. They said we could clean the carpet if we really wanted to. I do not. I have no sentimental attachment to this. Burn it. We ordered new carpet. Everything has been cleaned and sanitized. We will live. We decided that. We will try to make cinnamon buns again. Everything will be okay.
Bread declared over dinner last night that we’ve had our fair share of acts of God this year. He reminded me of the recent shit storms provided especially for me by my child. He said the Great Basement Flood of 2011 would obviously count as such. He seems to think that next it will be a locust invasion or, perhaps, bed bugs. Bed bugs! Are you crazy! You don’t talk about bed bugs! If we get bed bugs I’m moving out! Curse you! Did he not get the memo regarding our luck? We’re screwed.
