Sorry there was no flash fiction yesterday like I promised. But yesterday was exciting, so there is a blog post! Expect a flash fiction piece next Friday. I promise I will keep my promise this time.
***
Yesterday afternoon I was getting ready to head off to the post office when someone rang our doorbell. It was a neighbor.
“You have a big water leak over here,” he said.
We walked to the side of the porch where the hose and spigot used to be, and where a geyser had now appeared. The spigot had apparently burst during a particularly hard freeze, and after a couple days of relatively warm weather had thawed enough to start spraying water all over the porch, the downstairs neighbors’ stairwell, and the yard.
“You’ve got to get that turned off fast,” the neighbor said. “Do you know where the main shutoff is?”
I did not, of course, know where the shutoff was, in the same way that I never know anything immediately useful. So I went back inside and woke up my roommate, Craig. It took a moment for me to break through his “slept through half the day” haze, but I eventually figured out that he didn’t know where the shutoff was either. So I phoned my landlady. Predictably, she was in class and unavailable, since it was the middle of the day on a weekday. I left a message in which I made it clear that the world was coming to an end at her rental property and we needed her help ASAP, goodbye. The neighbor and I searched the outside of the house for a shutoff and Craig searched our basement, but with no luck.
Looking at the geyser again, the neighbor pointed out that the water was running right around the foundation of the house, so he and I maneuvered two snow shovels in front of the geyser, to try and divert the flow out into the yard instead. I was completely soaked in freezing water in the process. But even after the river was somewhat diverted, we discovered that water was still finding its way through cracks in the cement and bubbling up in my downstair’s neighbors’ stairwell, where the drain was conveniently clogged, and a lake was forming.
I called the water department and asked them to come out right away and shut off the water by the street to keep the downstairs apartment from flooding. They came out very quickly, but even with a shovel, two probes and a metal detector, they couldn’t locate the water valve under the snow. As they searched, the water in the stairwell continued to rise until it was only an inch below the level of the doorsill.
At that point, we were out of options, so finally Craig broke and entered let himself into the downstairs apartment, searched their cupboards and closets and (miracle of miracles!) located the shutoff to that specific pipe, thus saving the day. Yay!
(The landlady has promised us chocolate for our troubles, by the way, and we’re going to hold her to it.)
