Overflow

Today's events have inspired me to include an entire section on "Household Maintenance" to ensure when one lives independently, one knows how to shut off the water to an overflowing toilet.

There's water every where: linen closet, clothes closet, hallway, seeping up the walls.

I left for work this morning and after turning on the Parkway, my cell phone rang. ( I don't usually answer the cell when I'm driving because I drive a manual transmission and that's just vehicular hari-kari trying to talk & shift.) I answered. It was Bo. He reported the toilet in "his" bathroom was overflowing. I told him to shut the water off to the toilet. He'd never heard of such a thing.

I pulled over, called back and talked him through it. Unfortunately, I could hear him splashing through the water as I waited for him to report back. He shut off the water. He laid down every towel in the closet. And there was still water everywhere.

When I got to work I called DD. He went home and started the damage control of wet vac'ing and ventilation. The pad is probably shot. We might be able to dry and salvage the carpet. Homeowner's Insurance? I don't know.

An important part of managing personal finances is caring for the assets, like the carpet, walls and plumbing. Therefore, we'll have future posts on interesting household projects like:

--Um, where's the fire extinguisher?
--If the smoke detector goes off, don't unplug the battery just because you burned the bacon
--This is the circuit box. Don't mess with it.
--I can shut off water to the toilet, what about the sink, Mom?
--Why we don't mow the lawn barefoot

And many more useful and interesting topics in store.