Crises resolved

The leak is fixed! The basement drips no more!!

And I was completely wrong. The water from the mains had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. I thought — I was sure — I saw a marked decrease in drippage once the water had been turned off. Oh, not immediately afterwards, but soon enough. It seems, however, that either I was utterly deluded or there was an entirely coincidental ebb of the flow.

Isn’t it funny that we lived for two days without water before we discovered this? Oh, how I chortle at the irony.

What caused the leak, then? An ice dam. On the roof, three floors up. An ice dam of epic proportions.

Enter the large man equipped with a ladder and and an axe, give him an hour or two to shake the home to its foundations as he whaled away at the ice (with an axe, atop an extension ladder three floors off the ground), first at the side of the house, then again at the front, write said large man a mid-sized cheque (more than $250, less than $500), and voila! No more drip.

Instantly stopped. And just in the nick of time, because this weekend the temperature is forecast to hit ten degrees. TEN. With rain, lots and lots of rain. A lake of rain behind an immense ice dam would have meant a lake in the basement. Phew. So bring on the large man with the axe, say I!

“Why is someone hammering on the wall by my window?” Emma calls down the stairs. It is explained. Ice dam, large man with axe, the floor above her window, close your curtains.

“You know, we could probably have gotten a pissed-off teenager to do this,” my husband observed as the house jarred with repeated thuds.

Which seems true enough on the surface. They have near-adult strength, they have far-more-than-adult energy, and that would be just the kind of task that would appeal to a certain type of boy. (NOT my son, and not just because I value his life too much to put him atop an extension ladder three floors up. In the dark. Did I mention this was after dark? Not my son because he is afraid of heights. It’s his destiny, really: both his parents suffer the affliction.) But a certain type of boy would LOVE to be handed an axe and told to go wild on the ice.

Not the type of boy I’d want striking out with an axe against my roof, however. Never mind the far-greater-than-average odds that in his “I’m-an-immortal-teen” arrogance he’d slip and plunge to his death. (Because, hello? Extension ladder, three floor up? In the DARK??) Never mind that. Just imagine what he’d do to my ROOF. With an AXE.

No, we will happily pay the professional to come and do it properly. Better him than me.

And my new fridge arrives tomorrow!!

Water in the right places, no water in the wrong places, and cold food once more. Oh, oh, oh!

Merry Christmas to me!