Red Shoe Ramblings: The Saga of a Soggy Saturday

Yesterday I mentioned that J and I encountered some problems around the house this weekend. I'm not sure if they're yet to the point of "amusing anecdote", but let's find out, shall we? Gather round, kiddies, if you dare, and listen to our tale of woe. It all started innocently enough. We went to bed Friday night and slept peacefully (well except for the part where J was being a total Blanket Hog and I kept waking up with my ass exposed and freezing, and I therefore almost had to smother him with a pillow, but other than that it was a peaceful and lovely night). We were blissfully unaware of what was happening Deep in the Heart of the Basement. (Damn, this would be so much more effective if I could cue some "Jaws" music right about there.) Here's the thing. We get our water through the county water system, but because we live way on top of a big ol' hill - a hill which is, in fact, as tall as the hill where the water tower sits - by the time the water gets to us, we have no pressure. So we have a pump in the basement. Gravity gets the water to the pump and the pump gets the water to the rest of the house with enough pressure and volume to be usable. UNLESS, that is, a hose blows off the pump. If that happens, oh let's say late on a Friday night maybe, just as a wild, off-the-cuff example, maybe when the water is last used for the night and the inhabitants of the house go drifting off to dreamland in sweet, sweet ignorance. THEN, there is no water pressure or volume in the morning. THEN there is a cold trickle of water upstairs and a couple of inches of water on the floor of the basement. Sigh. So Saturday morning was spent mopping and figuring out what we needed for repairs (WE, in this case being J, since I know nothing about water pumps, and was, at this point, reallyREALLY glad I had let him live the night before). Then we drove the 10 miles to town and while we were there we had a nice, artery-clogging breakfast, 'cause hey...why the hell not! We went to the plumbing supply place, bought some hose and clamps and glue and Stuff and came home and we fixed the whole shebang (WE, in this case STILL meaning J...I mopped up extra water and made encouraging noises and repented my homicidal thoughts). J got everything hooked back up, and plugged back in and it all worked. YAY! All done! Except...um...what is that dripping sound coming from the OTHER end of the basement? We walk down to check. We see a stream of water dripping enthusiastically from the floor above. WTF??? We run back up to the main floor to investigate. We find a flooded laundry room. It seems that while we were in town that morning, elevating our cholesterol and buying parts to fix the water pump, our hot water heater decided that would be the PERFECT moment to rust through and die. THUNK. We said some Bad Words. We said SEVERAL Bad Words. While J started shutting off water and power to the old heater and dragging in a garden hose to let it finish draining somewhere OTHER than the laundry room floor, I made some calls to find out where we could get another one. Then it was BACK to town, to the exact same store, to buy a new water heater and yet more fittings and things, while we both tried very hard not to think of all the other ways we'd rather have been spending that money and time. So we then spent the afternoon installing the new water heater. Fun times! (I assume by now you know who I mean by "we." I mopped.) Happy ending, right? Um, yeah, not so fast. Remember when I posted about this time yesterday I said things weren't quite done? That would be because a) one of the connections on top of the heater was leaking just a tiny bit, so J had to re-do it (fingers crossed that it's finally fixed!) and b) as we were getting the old water heater out of the house, we dropped it and broke away one of the steps leading to our deck. THUD! At that point we threw up our hands and said "screw it", but yesterday was another day and we seem to be all functional again here at Casa Richardson, although I'm almost afraid to say that out loud in case I jinx us. At the moment though - water pump working? check; hot water heater working? check; stair replaced? check. We spent a nice big hunk of yesterday afternoon hanging out on the deck and doing Absolutely Nothing. We felt like we'd earned it.