First, why not scroll down to yesterday's post and see what was up in Tiffland yesterday to make this post any tiny little bit interesting and relevant. Go on, I'll wait.
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OK THEN, HERE'S THE UPDATEY BIT!
Apparently God has a robust sense of humor, for when I finally did decide to get my a** in gear yesterday afternoon, here's what happened:
The oil change place had a one-hour wait. I did not. Many things to do, you know.
There were storm clouds on the horizon as I went into the Mall Wart. As I was perusing the offerings in the camping section, the skies opened up and the rain did start to clatter on the roof. And clatter, and clatter, and then the thunder started, and the clattering intensified, and the crowds of people began to stop up the egresses in wait for cessation of the clattering. Oh, yes, it was raining to beat the proverbial BAND. I had to laugh a little, because y'all, I realized, somewhat twistedly, that I probably deserved to get wet for being so "off-putty" with my chores, and so I gathered up my things and headed out, not in the least part because I had scored a REALLY close parking spot earlier and therefore thought "how wet can I get?"
Answer? VERY wet. The "water dripping from your head" kind of wet. The "shirt becomes a sodden mass of white cotton" wet. The "laugh at the universe" kind of wet that only a nice hot shower will unwet you from, if that makes any sense atall.
But that was not the best part, for there was one other thing this middle-aged white chick had to deal with before Mother Nature/God/Loki was done with her.
The icemaker.
See, for a day or so there's been a little puddle that repeatedly has appeared on the floor in front of my fridge. I'd sop it up, thinking it was maybe condensation, and then it would reappear. This was no mere condensation, folks....for condensation does not make a puddle that reached all the way across the kitchen floor in a few hours. There was something else going on, and it was likely not good at all. I tried to not think about it.
I stopped thinking it would be OK to not think about it when a friend opined as to how all that water might cause the floor under the fridge to eventually rot out, leaving me with an icebox that would perhaps someday be resting on the floor of the crawlspace, making it rather difficult indeed to get to the crisper drawers.
It must be said here that I'm not fan of the crawlspace, for there are dead things in there and also live spiders and I'm sure a bogeyman is getting some home training down there. I should very much NOT like to have to use it as an access point for my groceries on anything like a regular basis. Therefore, I pulled the refrigerator out from its snuggly spot on the kitchen wall to see what was afoot (hoping all the while for mere "exhuberant condensation" to be the answer to my moisture issues).
And yet, there was a sound. Condensation, as you might know, does not make a sound. This sound was a gentle hissing, like a very small and angry snake, or, more likely, like a very small leak in the water supply line to the icemaker, which, coincidentally, quit working about three weeks ago. Yes, I most surely had a leak.
Hey, I have duct tape (or "duck" tape), I could whip up a quick fix, right? Sure I could. All's I had to do was pull the hose up and out of the back of the fridge a little bit to ascertain precisely where the leak was.
Which is when the tubing snapped almost completely in half.
Water water everywhere.
The duct tape thing was clearly no longer an option. Thinking rather quickly for someone who was still grossed out by what had been found on the floor under the fridge on its removal from home port, I quickly cut off the supply line with some scissors, kinked off the supply, secured the kink with a rubber band, and set about to roundly cussing my situation.
What to do then, though? I couldn't just leave the fridge out in the middle of my kitchen with a slowly dripping icemaker supply line stuffed into a plastic cup which was wedged behind the microwave for safekeeping. I had to do something Homeownerly, and find the shutoff valve for the supply line to staunch the drippage. A canvassing of options then took place:
Was the valve visible behind the fridge? No.
Was it under the sink? No.
Was it outside the house? No, but thanks for being an optimist.
It became clear that if there was a shutoff valve at all, it was obviously going to be in the crawlspace. (Shudder) I'd have to venture down there, in the rain and the gathering gloom, with only a flashlight to protect me from the bogeymens and womyns, the spiders, and the hopefully unreanimated remains of those two dead mice that went under the house to die about a month ago that I haven't wanted to touch since then.
Yup, there was nothing for it, if I wanted to be "responsible" and "adult," I'd have to go down there, through the small access door, past the mousal remains, under the dripping A/C ductwork, over the damp earth floor, to the far dark corner of the house under the kitchen to find out if there even WAS a shutoff valve.
I had thoughts of not doing this at all, I have to admit. However, I steeled myself for the awful trip, adding a plastic spatula to my armament for extra protection (as a spider-web sweeper, dontcha know!), and trudged out into the rain to meet my doom.
This was NOT how I planned to spend my evening.
Oh, the crawlspace was everything I knew it would be. There was a gigantic spiderweb right inside the wee wooden door, which one swipe of the spatula dispatched quite handily. The mouse carcasses were indeed still there (and still ARE, presumably), the great courses of ductwork were dripping, the floor was just the right amount of damp so as to maybe allow zombie hands to reach up from below and drag me under, and I swear to you that there was a flash of Bogey-eye in the darkness under the living room. I pressed on, though, my goal a mere 30-foot crawl away.
(Y'all, when I say crawlspace, I MEAN it. This place is not even "hands and knees" high in some spots).
I found that muttering under one's breath does seem to help in the "not attacked by zombies" area. Also? No bogeymens! Bonus points for the muttering.
The blind sweeping of the plastic spatula caught whatever spiderwebs there might have been, so bonus points for extra armament.
Also, bonus points for FINDING a shutoff valve. Hooray! Extra bonus points for it actually working! Yay! Final bonus points for making it back across the dreaded crawlspace without injury, and for getting out alive even after I spotted the freaking GIANT black spider just inside the crawlspace door, who, in all likelihood, is not a big fan of mine, being as how I totally annihilated its home on my entry. Sorry spider.
Of course, once I got out alive (ALIIIIIIIVE!!!) I started to feel like there were thousands of itchy-bitey baby spiders all over me, and perhaps some bogey-boogers as well. Yes, it's a good thing I still hadn't taken that "after getting rained on" shower I mentioned earlier, for it's a proven FACT that showers are as good at washing phantom spiders out of one's hair as they are at de-wetting one's self from a rainstorm.
After that, it was a reasonably quick matter of mopping up the pure evil that had been under the fridge, putting it the appliance in place, and rewarding myself with a cocktail and a few YouTube videos.
(Lily Allen's "Smile" and Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," if you must know, are tops on the list right now. I might be a little late to the party for these two singers, but that don't mean I can't dance!)
So, there you go. My comeuppance for being a procrastinating, highly distractable, somewhat lazy bag o'water this weekend. That'll teach me.
How was YOUR weekend?
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