Water Park

So, probably not what you were thinking, right? Well, for the past few weeks, our toilet has had some issues with filling the tank back up after you flush. This has become quite annoying as it has progressed from happening occasionally to every single time. You had to take off the cover to the tank and jiggle the little thingamajig (i'm not even going to try to get technical here) that senses whether or not the tank is full (you know... the little floating thing). I knew this was going to probably happen at some point, I just hoped it wouldn't happen as a result of me jiggling it.

So I was sitting on the couch Saturday evening and I heard a strange noise, then saw Brandon run out of the bedroom soaking wet saying he needed a wrench.

The floaty deal (I live in west Texas, that's acceptable) had broken off when Brandon tried to get it to fill up and water from the pipe was shooting at a very high pressure straight up in the air. This wouldn't normally be as big of an issue because if this happened to you, you would probably just reach down to the water valve near the floor, turn the handle and turn off the supply until you could fix it. Well, you forget that we live in a house that was built in the 40s (maybe earlier, I'm just guessing) and probably hasn't been taken care of since. It also hasn't been updated since then which shows by the fact that there is not one piece of Sheetrock in the whole house and we have ceiling tiles. So when you live in a place like this (I mean, really I'm not complaining, we hardly pay anything in rent) and something like this happens, you reach down to turn off the water and remember there is no handle to the valve, its been broken off for who knows how long--hence the frantic tone when Brandon said he needed a wrench.

This may have not even been near as bad as it was if his tools were at our house, but they aren't anymore. He and his brother have been working on the boat together over at his parents' house and that's where his tools are (we wouldn't need them at the house). So he runs down to his truck to get something from there. I of course, am bubbling over with curiosity of what it actually looks like in there.. I mean, I'm standing outside the door to the bathroom listening to the high pressured water spray and soak everything in there, so I peaked. I opened the door about an inch and a half and all I saw was water spraying everywhere like some sort of thing straight from a water park.

By this time, I'm running through my head what all is in there and what is getting soaked. Right about that time, Brandon comes running back in with a pair of some kind of pliers or something like that... all I know is they were covered in crude.

He pushes his way in and slams the door behind him yelling for me to get some towels. At that moment, I look down and immediately notice the river running from under the bathroom door, around Bridger's food bowl and straight into the closet, straight for my shoes!! I grabbed a stack of towels that hadn't been put away yet and saved my shoes in the nick of time!

I heard the water pressure gradually get weaker and weaker until there was no more sound. I slowly opened the door to the bathroom to assess the damage. Brandon was standing there soaking wet with a big smile on his face, there was about an inch and a half of standing water on the floor strategically dammed up by my towel placement (I had to protect the shoes) and everything was dripping. All in all we lost a magazine (one I had been meaning to throw away because it was a wedding one, and well, I don't really need those anymore), water damaged about 4 books, lost about half a package of toilet paper, completely soaked our shower curtain, ceiling, mirror, light, cabinet, and soaked every towel we own to the point where it is just dripping.

Thing could have been much worse, but that's why we have renter's insurance! Oh, and the girl below us got enough water in her apartment to nearly soak her rug, that's how much it was. At least you now know our bathroom has been cleaned at a pretty high pressure.

We definitely created something for us to do on a night when we didn't have anything planned AND we now have a perfectly working toilet! We had to do laundry because we didn't have any towels for sunday morning so after Brandon fixed the toilet, we went and did 2 loads of towels at his parents' house. The part that broke was the cheap $3 way of fixing a toilet, Brandon assured me he got the deluxe part instead at a whopping $10.. I'm just glad that we could afford such a high expense since the last time this happened (which I bet is what cause the knob to break off in a panic) the person couldn't spare the extra $7!

Bridger didn't seem to mind too much about all the commotion. This is her newest lookout point for lizards. I'm pretty sure she sat here in and out of sleep for about 4 hours. And please notice how she has moved the guard rails to make the perfect spot for her head.