ANOTHER DISASTER
The characters in my books do some quirky things, and
strangers often ask, “Where on earth do you come up those insane ideas?” Friends
never ask. They know.
stories, interacting with imaginary people. I shop on the Internet. I visit
with friends on Facebook and e-mail. I live a quiet life, a somewhat isolated
life. Yet disasters find me.
my porch and dumped oil based stain on my head, didn’t notice because it was
the same color as my hair, and, hours later, had to soak my hair in paint thinner
twice to be able to unbraid it.
clean the jets in the Jacuzzi so I could sit in it later that evening. I
planned to fill the tub, dump in some bleach, turn on the jets and let it do
its thing until I felt they were clean all the way through. But it’s a big tub
and takes a very long time to fill, so I got bored waiting and came into my
office to work on the book.
water running over the top of the tub, across the bathroom floor and into the
air conditioning vent in the floor.
with water, why did the smoke detectors go off?”
turned off the water, opened the drain in the tub, and tossed some towels on
the bathroom floor. Still cursing (I do think I have an impressive vocabulary
of swear words), I grabbed more towels and headed to the basement while the ten
smoke detectors in the house continued to shriek at me.
outburst. Water was pouring through the one in the ceiling directly beneath the
bathroom. I wasn’t sure about the ramifications of that, but I was pretty sure
it wasn’t good.
stream of water.
closet downstairs for more towels.
“Is everything okay?”
the basement is going off.”
case?”
urinating smoke detector and tossed down the dry ones. “I’m in the basement.
There’s no one here but me.”
set off the glass breakage alarm.”
Is something on fire?” He gets excited very easily, and I could tell from his
tone that he was moving up the excitation scale rapidly.
of the excitability scale.
that scale just like the water over the top of the Jacuzzi.
under control.” I dragged the soggy towels into the downstairs bathroom with
the intention of putting them in the bathtub. Water gushed from the ceiling
through the light fixture above the tub. “I may not have everything under
control.”
soggy as well as the carpet in the basement. But the water had stopped running
through the smoke detector. He was not as soothed by that fact as I thought he
should be.
occupied the master bedroom upstairs as well as the hallway and bathroom
downstairs. ServPro even drilled holes in the ceiling and ran tubes up through
them to dry it out. The place looked like a sci fi movie and sounded like an
airport. As of this date, we still have workmen coming and going. They finished
the ceiling and walls in the downstairs bathroom a couple of days ago. Matt
commented that it looked very nice, better than before what with the fresh
paint.
some more rooms so we can get them all fixed up too?”
writing and forget about cleaning.