If you recall, recently my girls gave me the pleasure of dealing with my first toilet overflow situation. Well, the entertainment (for lack of a better word) continues.
We have a 5 gallon water cooler that sits on our back porch. For the most part the girls aren’t too bad with messing with it. So the other day I go to get a glass a water and I cannot get the handle to turn off. Water just keeps coming out and I yell to Brad to come and help me before water gets all over the place. I figure out the problem. The girls have messed with it so much that they loosened the handle so water was just spurting out of the threads. Problem solved. So I thought.
I usually get up a couple of times a night regardless of the girls and I generally get myself a shot of water. Now you have to walk pass our water cooler to get to the restroom. First off, before bed I conveniently sorted out laundry so I could dive into those household chores I love so much in the morning. So I had a load of laundry sitting on the floor in front of the water cooler. On my second trip through, around 4 a.m. I notice that the floor is damp and I look and see that almost the entire 5 gallons of water was flowing nicely out of our water cooler! Again, I tighten the nozzle. Obviously I didn’t get it the first time. But for once, my preparation of laundry paid off. Heh, it soaked up a nice bunch of the water. Of course it wasn’t nearly enough considering for an entire day I stood on towels trying to get the rest of the water up.
Day 2. A funky odor. Oh no, why is my house stinking? I take out the trash, run the garbage disposal but still I smell, something. So I get on my knees and smell the wet carpet. Oh no! The carpet smells horrible. I do what I do and jump on the internet to see what I can do to get bad odors out of the carpet. I settled on the vinegar, water, baking soda solution and set the fan up. I also boiled water and vinegar on the stove because I hear that is another way to get smells out of your home. When Brad gets home from work the house is swelling at the seams from a musty/vinegar smell. Not a good combination. I told him the next step was to tear up the carpet and get rid of the padding underneath. So like a good husband and father he promptly peeled up our carpet and discarded the padding.
He was so frustrated that if a washer, dryer, deep freeze and two cabinets didn’t sit on the carpet he would have ripped the entire thing up. I told him to just wait and we would see.
Happily, when I got up on the third day, the carpet and sub flooring was dry and it didn’t stink. I texted Brad the good news and we both felt much better.
All the while the girls play. It’s good to be a kid.
So, we are into year four with these ladies. They have turned our world upside down and cost us a fortune. They have peed on the couches and in their beds, the have splashed water out of the tub and overflowed our toilet, the have colored on the walls, lampshades and windows, they have wasted good amounts of shampoo and bubble bath, they throw whole bananas away after one bite and spilled things on the carpet. I could go on but you know what? This motherhood thing has been the best ride I’ve ever been on.
I just wish they came with some sort of insurance policy of their own.
