How To Tell If Your Day Is About To Turn Ugly

Let's just say you were looking forward to a calm Sunday with your family, a little sleeping in, a little church, a little day off from the cares of the world. Sounds good doesn't it?

I thought so, especially the sleeping in part--until Kid D woke me up Sunday morning with this, "Mom, there's water dripping from the ceiling. Inside!"

That, my friends, is how you know your day is about to head south. Fast.

There are some things you can sleep through and deal with later like: the sound of cartoons in the other room, the sound of kids getting their own cereal, or even Kid D saying, "The cat threw up on the floor." The last one makes you groan, but at least you know it's not going to get worse, the deed is done after all. But you can't sleep through water dripping from the ceiling because it is going to get worse. A lot worse. And because it is not supposed to rain inside.

And that rain should never come from the toilet.

Toilet rain is just ugly.

And it doesn't get any prettier when coming through your basement ceiling in bucketfuls after collecting on the main floor bathroom like some sewage-tinged wading pool.

Oh, and water isn't that much better when it sprays out of your main water shut off valve in addition to spilling from the toilet. Just saying.

Sigh, I guess you could just say we have an affinity for toilets. And water. So much for sleeping in.

Thing Number Three

You know how I blogged about my cat and my basement flooding and worried about bad thing number three striking? Well, the hillside above our house started on fire, and I thought, Crap.

But the firemen were awesome and put it out before any houses went up in flames. Then I thought, Dodged a bullet there. Sweet. Thing three averted.

Wrong. The Universe doesn't work that way. It likes threes. It also doesn't like me dodging bullets. Yup you guessed it, our three happened last night, and no, it wasn't as bad as the house burning down, or even as bad as it flooding, and definitely not as bad as my cat getting hit by a car, but it was messy. (And that was a really long sentence.)

What was our thing three? In an effort to be a good hostess to a book club meeting at my house, I decided to make fresh scones. You have to use oil to deep fry scones. We had lots of scones planned, so we had lots of oil. Do you know what happens to carpet if you accidentally dump a gallon of oil on it? I do. And did it just fall on the ground and goober up one spot? Of course not, such a silly question. It had to hit the floor and splash over fifteen feet of carpet. Curse you cooking oil!

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't just learned that the carpet we so painstakingly cleaned and pulled up from the basement flood can't be relaid--something about it being bad if the back comes off the front. Sheesh.

Oh well, at least we've had our three. Knock on wood. Several times. (Please, stop at three, Universe. I'm begging you.)

So, if any of you out there know how to get oil out of carpet, you will officially be my new best friend (oh the glory!), because after hours of trying, I despair.