Man the battle stations, I think we've been hit!

So I come home after a wonderful evening last night spent with a friend cruising around town in his Ferrari (yeah, life's rough, right?) and am getting ready for bed around 11:30 pm when I suddenly hear a very loud continuous noise in my house. Very loud. Not stopping!

Ruh-roh, right?

So I do a mental Cat Check. Ya know, to figure out if one of my cats might be the ones causing the noise. But no, CJ is in the bathroom with me watching me remove makeup and I had just seen Emma in my bedroom attacking imaginary objects (best just to love her and not mock her "specialness").

This doesn't bode well. Because ANY noise in the house not made by me or the cats is generally NOT A GOOD THING!

I quickly head off to the kitchen to investigate and find water just GUSHING out from under the kitchen sink. GUSH-ING!!!! The floor is already covered and I look over to see CJ frantically donning her life jacket and screaming "everyone to the life rafts ... we're going downnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" (she was so!)

I open the cabinet doors and the water spray coming off the pipes just makes me shut the doors right back again! I take half a second to panic ... realize there is no-one near enough to call to help me with this because the house will surely float away before anyone can get to me... then grudgingly decide to put on my big-girl pants (which in this case was to take off my pj bottoms and slip on some jeans) and try to remember where the blasted water turn-off is. I think it's under the front of the house somewhere but then think "HEY ... but the toilets have those water shut-off valves right behind them .. perhaps the sink does too?" (yeah, I know. I should know this stuff ... but there ya go).

So I open the cabinet doors again but just can't see in there well with all the water bashing about! But I know I have to do SOMETHING ... so I kneel down and blindly reach in there hoping to feel a valve somewhere. And I DO! Whoo hoo! I manage to turn it and turn it and turn it until finally I get the water slowed down to just a small arching stream. But the valve doesn't seem to want to go anymore ... cuz each time I really try to put some oomph into turning it more water seems to start leaking instead of less. And with the house being so old I'm thinking any more oomph and the whole thing comes off and starts gushing again and then where would I be? Drowning in my own kitchen because CJ took the only life jacket!?! Right? Not a good option.

Now completely drenched, I stand back up and think .. "now what? What would a man do?" And then it comes to me .... DUCT TAPE THAT BAD BOY!! (right?)

Only I can't find my duct tape anywhere (I SWEAR I've bought some .... but it must be hiding out with my two bras which have just recently gone missing) ... so I grab up my painter's tape and slosh back through to the kitchen sink. Only the painter's tape doesn't create any kind of seal ... but at least it directs the leak downward and I am able to prop a flower vase against it to catch the water while I grab some towels and start trying to mop up the deluge.

Unfortunately, the pipe is still leaking hard enough that the vase fills every two to three minutes. Which I can then empty into a bucket I have but which means my hopes of creating some temporary solution til morning ain't working.

Sigh.

I need to call someone. But who? 11:30 at night on a school night ... not good.

So I call my friend D's house because she's a night owl and I'm hoping her husband J (who is an EMT) is working in my area and can swing by. Or at least offer some advice. Because I know he knows plumbing.

But as my luck would have it, J answers the phone!!! Whooo hooo! I tell him my plight and he says he'll be over in 30 minutes (it will actually take him about that long to drive to my place ... curses that most of my friends don't live by me ....and my neighbor who I may just have imposed on for this is out of country this week).

But how absolutely SWEET of J, huh?!

Anyway, I take those 30 minutes to mop up the majority of the water on the floor ... while still continuing to empty the flower vase every couple of minutes.

And then J gets there!!! At midnight! With his tools! Whooo hoooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, he just walks in, takes a look at the leak, and turn the valve harder til the leak stops. (oops). Then tells me to give him a spare house key and he'll get the replacement part today and fix it properly while I'm at work! HOW NICE IS THAT, PEOPLE?!

Man, I just feel so lucky!

Lucky, first off, that I was home when it happened! Because if I hadn't been, that would have been bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD! The amount of water that gushed out in the 10 seconds or less it took me to get to the leak was phenomenal!

And I also feel very lucky that I felt I had friends I could call on at that late hour. And that are willing to help like that!

Blessed, blessed, blessed!

AND ... to top it all off ... I now have clean kitchen floors!!! Whoo hooo! (amazing what a little water and some mopping can do .... who knew?? ;))

Now if I could only get the cats to stop singing their raucous rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" all would be good!! ;)