We All Live In A Yellow Submarine...

It started off innocently enough on Saturday night. Madison was hosting a sleepover with 2 of her friends. Playing ensued. Pizza was ordered and eaten. A fun time was being had by all.

For the purpose of this woe-begotten tale, I will share that our home is a split level where the bottom floor is actually a finished basement and 2 car garage. Nearly two-thirds of this floor is devoted to Madison as a playroom/disaster area...the choice of description is really determined by one's age.

Anyways, the girls had taken their pizzas downstairs to continue playing unobstructed. Shortly thereafter, they bounded up the steps and announced they were getting their pajamas on. This, I believe, transpired at around 7 in the evening.

5 minutes pass, and Madison marches out of her bedroom informing us that her newest pair of jammies are still a bit too big. After much unsuccessful finagling, she heads back to her room to try on a different ensemble.

30 minutes later, they all emerge from Maddie's bedroom and rush down the steps. At this juncture, my wife and I were blissfully lounging about...her with a book and me with the laptop. In retrospect, this is what I would have to identify as the calm before the proverbial storm.

7 minutes have passed since the girls went downstairs, and now we hear the door creak open and my daughter, in her meekest voice, (which for any parent out there "a meek voice" is a clear sign of impending doom), says, "Daddy? I think we left the sink running downstairs and it's spilled a little water on the floor."

Panic sets in.

Down the stairs I race, assuming that, at worst, the bathroom is flooded. Ha! What a fool I turned out to be! No sooner did I take a step through the door, I was slightly immersed in wet carpet. The flooding encompassed the entire bathroom, as well as parts of 2 rooms, and finally streaming through the garage. To put it into proper context, one-third of the finished basement was under a centimeter of water.

Panic now replaced all general feelings and sensations. Words can't describe what I felt at that very moment. No, wait, scratch that...there were words, but not the kind one can share in a PG-rated blog.

It took 2 carpet cleaners at a combined pace of 2.5 hours to draw a majority of surface moisture out. I then proceeded to take the sink apart in order to dry out the carpet underneath it. Luckily, the basement has a concrete subfloor, so cleanup was not as troublesome as it could have been. We were also in need of a carpet fan, so my wife drove over an hour roundtrip to the closest Home Depot capable of renting us one.

Now, let's take a step back to recant how this all came about, shall we? You see, the sink had been running since just before the girls decided to get their pajamas on. A simple calculation of the time that transpired since then would put the tally at 42 minutes of unobstructed faucet flow.

Why, you may be asking, would they let the water run so long? Well, apparently the plan involved bathing a handful of Littlest Pet Shop toys. Keep in mind that the sink in question is one of those deep utility style behemoths. Given that, one of the girls complained that it was taking too long to fill, so she suggested the excursion up the stairs for pajama-dressing while the faucet lurched on.

It's a proven fact that 9 years olds, while very intelligent, have terrible time-keeping skills when at play. Saturday's events were a clear representation of this fact. It goes without saying that the sleepover was abruptly canceled, and I think I made it to bed around 230am when all was said and done. But, that's close to my usual bedtime, so no big deal.

Well, it's Sunday night now, and the carpet has dried completely. We even put some of the furniture back in place. There is still one small spot in the bathroom that the fan is tirelessly drying, even at this very moment. My wife is returning the rental tomorrow, and I am glad the worst is behind us.

In other words, we are no longer awash in a sea of despair.