"All words are symbols that represent unspeakable realities. Which is also why words are magical." (Donald Miller tweet)

Monday, July 13, 2009

okely dokely then

Do you remember the Simpson's episode where Ned Flanders loses it, and the gibberish takes over? (Don't click there if you aren't a Simpson fan!)

A few weeks ago, you may remember that we had a little old-iddly flood. Just some sewer water flowing up through the random diddly toilet and pouring throughout the basement.

And then insurance came along and said they would fix it - which they are - happily-oodly - but we probably should get a plumber to check things out before things are replaced and repaired.

And so we got a diddly-iddly plumber who cleaned out some pipes and sent a camera down, and said, "Oh, wouldja look at that. Yep, you got an issue here that you need to take care of. You can leave it be, but someday something awful will happen, and insurance isn't gonna cover it."

And we twitched slightly and said, "Okely dokely then."

So the plumber came back with his assistant and they fixed that darn-tootin' iddly issue, and installed a real, well-positioned basement drain. We got some significant Canadian Tire points on our credit card, and all was well, the plumber said, "... except ..."

insert face twitch here

" ... well, ya gotta leak that seems to have shaken loose from all the stuff being done down here, and you're gonna wanna take care of that, because we had to turn off the valve, and now you don't have any cold water in your kitchen ... "

diddly

diddly fan-freakinoodly-tastic oddely

Later that night, we discovered mid-cycle that our washing machine also no longer had cold water. Insert further face twitching here.

So a wonderful-iddly friend came along, and he and Spike fixed the leak. Actually, they opened up the wall from whence the silly-iddly-oddely leak came, and the whole darn pipe fell off, yessirreebobeedily. Good thing the sewer backed up, so that we could put in a drain, and fix a problem, and discover a leak, and rip out a wall, BEFORE water poured out of that pipe into our undrained basement. Whew!

insert more twitching and random nervous sneezing

On the weekend, it rained. Really a lot. And while I smugly reflected on the knowledge that our basement problems were fixed (you may notice a pattern here, from a few weeks ago) the sound of rushing water caught my attention, as my brain registered the fact that I wasn't running any water anywhere.

I hurled myself down the stairs to see, well look at that, we got ourselves a beautiful-iddly lil old-iddly water-aterly-fall-iddly coming down the wall, and working towards the newly installed-iddly drain. Just a darndiddly moment of joy, that was.

That's when the twitching turned into a seizure of some kind, as I ran upstairs, downstairs, in a circle, forgot entirely how to send a text message to Spike, and then started throwing things everywhere in an attempt to find my jacket, before running outside into the deluge to try to ... I don't know ... move water away from our house.

Soon the sun came out, and the water stopped, and it wasn't so bad, but if you listened closely, you could hear my continual mutterings of "giggelyiddelyoodely water falling from the sky iddely doodely and into my sewerlybuddley basement diddlelyoodely."

Spike came home, and we started repositioning downspouts and eaves, which meant Spike had to go up on the roof, which is where he discovered a hole, right above where the water came in, and he had a little twitching and muttering of his own, which I won't quote in this family-friendly space.

And so tomorrow, our roof gets fixed, so that no water will pour in from the roof above, nor from the sewer below, and leaking, falling-off pipes have been capped, and drains are clear, and foundations are drying. And soon, someone will come and put walls and flooring back into our diddly-iddly basement.

And then, to my poor, unsuspecting, lovingly lurking uncle, who politely inquired recently if I was still running ... just watch for me.

I'll be the twitching, muttering, crazily giggling one, running in tiny circles in the rain.