8/22/2010 The Rest of My 22 Hour Day!

When I returned home I stopped by to see Donna and Bill who are Quail Run friends of ours. They are visiting the baby states as Donna called them. Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and all the rest.

Donna told me that she was making dinner and to come back anytime after six. I agreed and drove off.

Back at the rig I was puttering around and clipped some cuttings from my philodendron plant for rooting. I got the cutting situated in the cup and proceeded to fill it with water. Darn, just a trickle of water because I had forgotten to turn our water on at the source when I got back. We always turn it off for safety reasons if we are going to be gone any length of time.

Distracted by who knows what I never did fill the cup with water. At 6:10 I noticed the time and grabbed and Pepsi and headed to Bill and Donna’s for an evening of Mexican Train and catching up with my friends.

About an hour later we heard thunder and I remembered that I had left the door open and excused myself to go close it before the rain started. Door closed, another Pepsi grabbed for their fridge, I proceeded to return to their rig. As I reached the end of ours another clap of thunder was overhead and sounded closer. Looking skyward at how dark the clouds were getting I thought I had better turn the water on at the source or I’d be doing it in the pouring down rain.

We finished our game and around ten I said that I had to get home since I had been up since 6:30 this morning and its been a long day.

I went home three streets over and walked into a dark house as I had forgotten to turn on a light. I walked to the kitchen counter to turn on the light there and five steps into the rig…..I splashed. SPLASHED ?!

I ran to the counter almost slipping on the wet linoleum and reached for the light. OMG! I looked at the water running nearly full force into an overflowing sink! OMG! I grabbed the phone and called Donna, nearly hysterical when she answered. She knew it was me but couldn’t understand a word I was saying but she knew it wasn’t good. Within minutes they were at my door and ran in and they too SPLASHED.

I had left the faucet open when I tried to fill the cup for my plant cuttings!

OMG…what do I do? WHAT DO I DO???? I did what any sane person would do when hundreds of gallons of water had run into her cabinets, down the floor, into the heater vents and everything was soaked! I GRABBED A TEA TOWEL TO CLEAN IT UP!

Donna asked where my towels were and I told her and yelled, “leave a clean one for my shower!” Trying to soak up this amount of water with towels, whether they be full size bath or small tea towels is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

Wet vac! I have to find the wet vac! Of course it was in the last place I looked. It was so slow going that all I could do was cry. Donna and Bill just looked around and shook their heads. Donna then snapped into action and asked if I had a 24 hour grocery store around. I thought that was a fine time to be thinking about food! I’ve got forty day and night’s worth of rain in the my carpet and she’s hungry! She then instructed me to call them and ask if they had Rug Dr. machines! Oh yeah,,,,Rug Dr. machines, good idea!

I found the number and called and talked to a very nice lady named Mo. I asked if they did carry the carpet cleaners and when she said yes I asked the next logical Snookie question. “How much is it to rent one?” Like it mattered!

When we returned I took the towels outside and all the wet throw rugs and put them on the picnic table. I heard water. A steady stream. Where was it coming from? I couldn’t find it. I went and got the flashlight and looked under the rig and the bottom was bulging! OMG…OMG…OMG! I sobbed. Bill got under the rig and stuck a tent peg into a hole he found and opened it a little bit and water really started coming out. This is a good thing! The water will drain, the insulation will dry and all will be good by Sunday when Bob comes home and he’ll never have to know. Yep, this is good.

We got in the car to go get it and in no time we were sucking water! I kept telling Donna all the way there and all the way back I can’t let Bob know, I can’t let Bob know. I’ll get the carpets dry and he’ll never have to know. I can do this.

We got right to work and Donna started with the machine. In mere minutes we were emptying the machine bucket. Bucket after bucket, it seemed never ending.

In the meantime I started emptying the cabinets under the counter. Wet,,,everything was wet. OMG,,,why is this happening?

At one a.m. Donna had to stop, she was exhausted. I thanked her and bid her goodnight, I would take over from here. I sucked water until four in the morning when I finally realized that I was putting just as much back into the carpet as I was getting out,,, with my tears. My arms and shoulders and knees were killing me, I had to stop.

I had to be at work by eight and I had to rest. I wanted to get up again at six so I could start with Rug Dr. machine again before I had to get ready.

I laid down and felt sick to my stomach. There would be no sleep for me tonight. My mind was racing a million miles a minute. I must have dozed off at one point from sheer exhaustion and I had a dream that Bob and I were leaving here and we were towing the rig over the bridge by the campground and like Hansel and Gretel left a trail only instead of bread crumbs it was our belongings as the bottom of the rig rusted and gave way and our stuff was falling out. Did I say dream? I meant nightmare.