When It Rains, It Pours

(Or Alternately Known As: "The Mother Fuckin' Basement is Mother Fuckin' Flooded")

People, the week has just gotten worse. Not Hurricane Katrina worse, but death of a grandma and flooding of a basement while your husband is out of town worse. What's next? Don't answer that, please, don't answer that.

About 3 hours ago, the phone calls to my dad and my brother-in-law went something like this: "There is a FREAKIN' WATERFALL COMING OUT THE BOTTOM OF THE WINDOW IN THE BASEMENT. No, I'm not kidding. I'M NOT KIDDING! Water. Is. Pouring. Into. My. Basement. NO A TOWEL WON'T WORK! POURING, IN A CASCADING SHEET OF WATER DOWN THE WALL ONTO THE FLOOR!!!!! Yes, I'll get a bucket... Ok, bucket is full. HELP!"

So, while my two year old thought it was just another day of fun and games, his mommy, laughing with pure hysteria, is trying to soak up muddy water from our backyard that is coming through the bottom of our window well, through the bottom of the window, and eventually, out little holes in our drywall below the window. All over our carpeted basement.

Dad arrives. Brother-in-law arrives. I think they find my laughter uplifting, as neither feels the need to curse, as I am curiously in good spirits, despite the thousands of dollars in damage mounting by the minute.

Oh, but wait! More good news! Though the water is coming through the window well, it is also discovered that our back-up sump pump is not working. NOT WORKING. So if we get pummeled again, not only will the water come through the water well again, but it will back the fuck up and flood my basement through the sump pump. Excellent. Wonderful. Please, tell me more!

The window well is cleaned out, the drain plunged, the neighbors downspout splash thingamajigger turned away from our part of the townhouse, and the back up pump is removed. After all, it wasn't doing a damn thing anyway, right? The carpet is vacuumed with a shop vac and a carpet shampooer, but if we kept at it, we may be done getting the carpet dry by March or so. So we pulled up the carpet, removed the padding as far as we could, and called it a night. What a fucking night.

At least my dad can replace the sump pump, saving us some much needed bucks for replacing the rest of the freakin' crap we need to replace. So that will be done in the morning. But that leaves the carpet, the drywall, and possible the window and the window well, all needing to be replaced. Seriously. I quit.

As the water was seeping in through the window, I thought Is this how it started in New Orleans?. People thought, Oh, this sucks, but it's just a little water. And then KABOOM! I can't even imagine. I mean, this is just a little carpet and drywall, not my whole house, my whole town. At least I know that there will be no KABOOM! for me. Sigh. It still sucks, but not as bad as it could. But the MFin' basement is still MFin' flooded.