My Christmas Adventure

Inspired by Mickey's post about his mountaineering adventure and the longest night of his life, I thought I'd share my own adventure about the Crappiest Christmas Ever®.

Last night K wakes me up in a mild panic. It had been time to feed E and she had gone into kitchen to fix his bottle when she heard a roar under the floorboards. I rush in, luckily avoiding stubbing any toes (a real danger when navigating darkened hallways and rooms at high rates of speed to realize it's the sound of rushing water. A pipe had burst.

Here's the annoying part: It was only about 40°F outside. Apparently the pipe had just deteriorated or came apart at a connection. I run outside across the yard, barefoot and pajama-clad, to the pump to shut the water off at the source. The grass was wet and my feet were achingly cold by the time I made the trek back into the house.

Then I went back to bed.

I'll admit that I didn't sleep that way. Annoyance and worry made sleeping difficult despite the warm covers and warm K making sleep a physically pleasant option. I even dreamed that the pipe had burst because my sister was practicing a plumbing project under the house in the middle of the night. She had even murdered one of my chickens so it wouldn't crow at her and wake us up. I also had a deck out the back door, which I don't have in reality. I woke up hoping that the original discovery of the broken pipe had been a dream as well. Alas, it had been all too true, my feet still being a little dirty to prove it.

I live in a house that is raised off the ground a few feet and there is a crawl space underneath. I am deathly afraid of crawl spaces. I have an overwhelming phobia of small crawly things that have no chance of actually hurting me like cockroaches, mice, and most spiders. Those kinds of animals really like crawl spaces. I also don't like not being able to even raise myself up into anything more upright than a military crawl. Despite all of this, I sucked up my fear, put on a bit of false bravado and a pair of coveralls and attacked the crawl space with fake gusto.

The coveralls were a bit of an adventure in their own. Supposedly, they were my dad's which should mean that they could possibly be a little tight around my middle (I'm barrel-chested and fat-bellied) but should fit around the shoulders and everywhere else. Instead, even the shoulders are tight an I end up looking a bit like a plump, blue Christmas sausage. It's a great way to start your Christmas morning.

After posing for pictures so that K could laugh at me in the future as well, I poke my head into the crawl space, get about waist-deep into the murkiness under the house, hoping the mouse nest under my head is currently unoccupied, and catch a glimpse of dog butt disappearing behind a post on the other side of the house. Bubba had sneaked through the entrance while I struggled with too-small protective clothing. I roll onto my side to give the stupid mongrel the right of way so he can exit and then I proceed. Just so you know, dragging yourself by your elbows the length of a house, all the while dodging pipes and wires, is neither fun nor comfortable. I finally get to the area where there is a bit of water on the ground and think I've identified the problem pipe. There is a pipe connected to nothing jutting out of the concrete base of the porch and utility room. I yell out for them to turn the water on at the pump to see if that's the problem and wait in the dust and gloom for something to happen.

Something does happen, only not in the place I expected. Instead of the unattached pipe I expected, water started gushing out of another unattached pipe. Apparently the other pipe was supposed to be that way. The one that used to be attached to my kitchen faucet wasn't any longer.

After the test, I wait some more in the now-mud and gloom while my dad drives back home to get the solvent and glue to stick the pipes back together. K and her parents sing me Christmas carols and K takes photos of me through the vent and gets me a mask so I don't have to keep breathing in dust. Of course now, instead of smelling onions (apparently there were some wild ones growing on the other side of the vent, I smell my own morning breath. I'm not sure that no longer having a gritty mouth is a trade up.

After a bit longer lying in the mud, I crawl over to the problem pipe and dry it off. I reach for the solvent to clean it and look back to find the pipe once again wet. I shake the pipes a bit to get the water out, dry it and look back to find it wet again. I do this a few more times before the water finally seems to stop. I finally get the solvent wiped on and the glue on afterward and the pipe fitting stuck back together. Now, I'm just waiting for it to set so I can see if it worked or if I'm going to need to call in a plumber tomorrow.

I crawl my way back the length of the house to the exit and come out, muddy and with sore shoulders and back, but hopeful that the problem is fixed. The really cool thing is that I don't find out until a couple of hours later (yes, I had done all of this by 7:30 this morning) that I had somehow scratched my arm and it was covered in mud. Awesome. Now I'm going to come down with some sort of exotic infection and die.

Christmas sucks.