This afternoon I stuck two towels in the washer and started the cycle, with the intention of adding a few more items to the load. I got sidetracked in the living room with one of the kids. Twenty minutes later, I walked back down the hallway to find a puddle. My first instinct was that it was pee. But then I noticed it was all over the hallway, and that the baseboards were swelling. I started to grab towels but noticed the water led into the bedrooms as well. I walked into the boys bedroom and I was standing in water.
Somehow, in under an hour, a load of two hand towels managed to flood the entire back half of my house. Which I handled like any mature adult would: by standing in the middle of the wreckage while bawling into the phone to Mark.
Thankfully we have insurance. I hope it is good. An emergency response team was out pretty quickly. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for her) my mom is in town, and she took the boys and Karis to my mother in law’s for the night. Mark and I stayed back, trying to get a sense of the consequences. For hours I was thinking we would just have the floor repaired in a couple of days and go about our busy lives. Then the repair crew started talking about drywall damage and wall replacement, and asbestos testing and removal procedures. At this point I said something like ‘so, it will be more than just tonight?’. And she looked at me the way you look at a kid who just realized Santa isn’t real. When she started discussing putting our furniture in storage, I really started to panic.
It looks like we are out of our house indefinitely. The floors are ripped out leaving a base of exposed tiles that may or may not be asbestos. The furniture is on stilts in the middle of the room and there are several dehumidifiers blowing every few feet. At about 11pm I finally conceded that we could no sleep there tonight, or any time soon. Mark and I took India to a local hotel. But tomorrow we have to find a place that can hold six of us. And somehow we have to pack up hour belongings in the middle of that mess. (and no, Moers, all of us sleeping in our newly built hideaway loft is not an option).
India and Mark are now sleeping and I am trying not to hyperventilate over how to manage four kids in a hotel for a few weeks. Because I was finding it plenty challenging at home.
(This is the part of the post where I insert something witty or sarcastic, to both lighten the mood and show that I haven’t lost my sense of humor. Yeah. I’ll have to get back to you on that one).
