The Great Flood

When talking with my eight-year-old son, he recently asked me if I could please write about the Great Flood. “Are you talking about the Nashville flood of 2010? You weren’t even born! Or the one from the Bible?” I asked as I folded what seemed to be the sixty-seventh load of laundry for the week. And it was only Tuesday.

“No, mom. The flood in our house.”

“Oh, yes. I try to forget about that one.”

Now, before I go into the story, it must be known that my husband does not know his own strength whatsoever. In the course of our almost ten year marriage, he has managed to rip off the front door of our house when casually opening it, completely pull out the garbage drawer from the frame in our kitchen, busted through the glass shower door of our bathroom, and he even single-handedly, accidentally removed our oven door from the hinges while cooking. It must be added that the home was not poorly built nor the appliances cheap. I blame the years of changing hundreds of tires on giant dump trucks when he worked with a construction hauling company. The amount of tire changes he handled had to have caused him to gain some significant arm strength.

It was July 4, 2018. I never forget the date because I now know that home emergencies are always trickier on holidays- less staff, fewer people answering phones, etc. You get the gist. I had just gotten my five-year-old and one-year-old down to bed, which was a fete in and of itself. As a reward for my long day of working and chasing after two small children, I ran a relaxing bath for a moment of peace and quiet to myself. My nightly baths were (and still are) one of my favorite parts of the day. It is my escape from the craziness of life, to wash the stress and hospital off of myself before getting to do one of my all-time favorite activities- sleep. After enjoying my twenty minutes or so of peaceful nothingness, I turned off the water from our new free standing faucet, only to realize it was still running.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself. “This faucet is basically brand new.”

Taylor and had I finally gotten around to redoing our master bathroom a few months earlier. He was somewhat sad to see the awesome eighties décor go, but I was thrilled. Especially since we had gotten rid of the three wall sized mirrors surrounding the old, sunken bathtub. I never understood why anyone would want mirrors everywhere in the bathroom unless they were a supermodel. Come to think of it, Taylor has always been pretty confident.

I tried to turn the water off again. This time I somewhat suceeded, but there was still a small steady stream coming from the faucet- much more than a drip. I tried a third time. No luck.

“Damnit,” I said to myself as I climbed out the bath, toweled off, and put on my fluffy, green robe. I went through the house to get Taylor’s help, as the steady stream of water flowed into the tub. I walked down the stairs to find him asleep on the couch while the History channel belted from the television in sync to his snores. I nudged him gently, then a little harder.

“Taylor. Wake up. I can’t get the water to turn off.”

Taylor jolted awake, talking in a strange jibber-jabber language before finally realizing where he was. “What water?”

“The water in our bathtub.”

“Our bathtub?”

“The one and only. I just need you to help me turn it off. Then you can go back to bed.”

Taylor rubbed his eyes and begrudgingly got off the couch. He followed behind me, up the stairs, and into the bathroom where we saw the small, steady stream coming from the free standing faucet in our new, beautiful renovation.

“Oh, that’s just a valve problem. I’m sure I can turn it off.”

I looked a Taylor, not understanding in the least bit what “just a valve problem” was, but I was happy he could fix it so our entire house could sleep. He reached over, grabbed the handle and fiddled with it, back and forth. The water kept coming.

“Are you sure you can fix it? Should we call a plumber?”

Taylor looked at me through sleepy eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m not calling the plumber this late at night on a holiday.”

He fiddled with it again, this time a little harder. Then again. Suddenly, Taylor ripped the entire handle of the faucet off of its pedestal, and a powerful force of water shot out onto the walls and floors of our freshly redone master bathroom. It was as if a fire hydrant had just blown with full force, only instead of flowing over asphalt of the street, it was flowing all over the newly laid tile in our bathroom, then out onto the hardwoods of our bedroom. I shrieked in panic as my bedroom rug soaked up moisture like a sponge.

Taylor yelled, “Stop screaming!” as he tried to piece the fixture back together over the force of the powerful water.

“What do we do?” I screamed.

“Stop screaming!” Taylor replied. I franticly ran downstairs to find my phone. Surely there was someone I could call. As I rounded the corner, I walked into the den and noticed we now had a waterfall flowing through our ceiling, into our main living room. I screamed again.

“Stop screaming!” I could hear Taylor’s voice from upstairs.

“It’s raining in the den!” I yelled back. I stopped, put both hands on my knees, and starting breathing exercises as I knew I was about to have my first official panic attack. I did a few Lamaze type breaths, pushed some chairs out of the waterfall’s way, and ran into the kitchen to grab my phone. I immediately googled plumbing emergencies.

First call- no answer. They were probably busy watching fireworks and drinking a beer.

Second call- answering machine. Fireworks again.

Third call- “Happy Fourth of July! This is Roto Rooter. How can I help you?”

“Thank God! My house is flooding!” I yelled desperately through the phone.

The sweet lady on the other end responded, “Now, calm down, honey. Tell me what happened.”

I proceeded to frantically to tell the patient woman on the other end of the line what happened to my new bathroom. Through my tears, I pleaded for her to help me. “Well, honey have you turned the water off?” she asked.

“How do I do that?” Now, I am an extremely and sometimes overly independent, capable person, but I had no idea how to turn the water off to my house or even where the turn off spout was.

‘Well, first go look in your garage. Or maybe the yard.”

I ran into the humid garage and looked around. My eyes locked in on the hot water heater. “Ma’am, I see a hot water heater, but no shut off valve. This is a disaster! ”

“Well, it’s probably in your front yard.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back.”

I ran upstairs, walked through the pond that was now my bedroom, and found an empty bathroom with the water finally off. “Taylor?” I called No answer. I walked into my children’s rooms, both still miraculously sound asleep, looking for my husband. It was eerily quiet, with no noise of running water, and only the soft slush of my wet footsteps. He was not upstairs.

I heard the front door shut. I walked to the top of the stairs and saw Taylor standing at the bottom, half of the faucet in hand, with a defeated look on his face. “I turned the water off.”

“Oh thank God.” I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, then realized we had to get to work. The next two hours were spent soaking up all the water with every towel we had ever owned, moving chairs from the living room to the back patio to dry, talking with sweet Sherry from Roto Rooter, and throwing out our sponge of a bedroom rug. It was well after midnight when we finally crashed.

The morning came sooner than we wanted, and we were woken by our son who was extremely concerned. “Mama, I think something happened to our house last night,” he innocently said to me as I drooled in my sleep, still wrapped in my fluffy robe.

“I think you are right,” I managed to reply while my eyes remained shut, hoping it was all a very bad dream. As I heard the squish of a wet towel below my son’s small foot, I knew the bathroom flooding was definitely my new reality.

As I struggled to get out of bed and go about breakfast as usual with my children, I began making the proper calls- insurance company, Sherry with Roto Rooter again to confirm the wet vac/ water remediation appointment for the day, and my contractor who I knew I would be seeing more of after we just demolished his beautiful work.

The next week went on with giant water sucking machines taking residence in our master bedroom. Miraculously, they were able to get all the moisture out and we would not have to retile. The faucet was under warranty, the chairs dried out, the floors didn’t buckle, and with fresh drywall, our trusty contractor, and a few short weeks, it was if the Great Flood never even happened. The remediation team praised us for getting the majority of the water up ourselves that night with every towel we had. It likely saved us a huge amount of damage and expense (even though it was one of the most challenging nights of my marriage).

Once everything was wrapped up and things were back to normal, I went to my local hippie dippy store, and made my husband have a smudge ceremony with me around our bathtub and in the living room below where the waterfall had come through. I believe his initial response was, “What the hell is a smudge ceremony?”

“We are going to smudge out any bad ju ju that came from this bathroom and that night,” I sternly told him.

“Do you even know how to do a smudge ceremony? Shouldn’t we have a shaman or someone like that?” Taylor questioned as he looked at me like I had officially lost my mind.

“No, I do not. But I am not taking any chances. And while I’m at it, I’m going to smudge you, too.” I walked around our living room with a fat bundle of smoking smudge, then up to our master bathroom, then back down and circled Taylor a few times. Once the entire family smelled like we had just left a Widespread Panic show, I was content and confident there would be no more issues- no more ripping things apart, no more indoor waterfalls, no more accidents involving Taylor and our home.

And thankfully, so far, the smudge has worked.

Need a home cleansing smudge kit for your own home? I found this beautiful set on Etsy. It could also serve as a great house warming gift. No one wants any bad ju ju in their home!

We’ve all seen those Shamwow infomercials. As annoying as they can be, you better believe I wish I had a whole pack the night of the Great Flood. Grab an eight pack on amazon to keep for yourself…just in case you find yourself in a sticky (or wet) situation.

Good ole Bob Vila has done his research and has for you on the very best wet vacs of 2022. Check them out here. You never know when you may need one.