Tuesday morning, a hole opened in one of the old copper pipes running to the washer with water shooting out onto the wall and soaking the rug in the basement. It seems a previous owner had used a steel bracket on a copper line and it corroded over time. The plumber came and fixed it, and I cleaned up water. That night, as I ran the dirty old towels from cleaning up through the wash, the drain line clogged and water shot up out of the pipe, covering the same floor with water once more. We called the plumber again and he said he'd be out in the morning. At 5 am this morning, I woke up to hear water suddenly start running. At first I though our son was taking a shower, but then remembered he had done that the night before. I ran to the basement to find that a fitting on the old connection for the long gone water softener had blown off and now there was water, direct from the main line into the house, shooting out at several gallons per minute. I called in to work and let them know I was not going to make it in today, then started the cleanup again. We called the plumber once again. He left at 5:30 this afternoon. What a freakin' day. We had a fair number of things ruined today. We have a few days of cleaning up ahead of us.

The beautiful thing in all this are, the water was pouring out right onto the place where my fly tying box and supplied are usually kept, but I hadn't put them away last time, so they were in the next room.

The reality of all this is that as much of a pain it may have been, it is really nothing more than an annoyance in the grand scheme of things. I think about the devastating losses that those in Long Island and the Jersey shore have suffered, and are still suffering, and I know that this is nothing at all.

Still, I just had to put it out there to get it off my mind.