Читать книгу Love Punch & Other Collected Columns - Rob Hiaasen - Страница 34

When the water hits the fan

April 6, 2014

I keep in my head and in notebooks a rag-tag team of sayings that have kept me company over the years—words from friends, actors, poets, licensed plumbers.

“Young men should travel, if but to amuse themselves.”

“Humor is just anger in a pretty dress.”

“Relationships are never over—they’re just over there.”

There’s another saying, which will define my April.

“Water wins.”

My basement flooded last week, and I’m sticking to this story:

Spring, that liar, told me to turn on the outside faucets so I may soon water all the dead stuff in my yard. In my basement, I reached up into the dropped ceiling whereby I was showered by insect remains. Shaken, I still managed to turn on the valve that allows water to flow to the outdoor faucet.

A day or two later—let’s say three days—I descended into my basement. It smelled like an overturned ark—or old feet. Apparently, a rare indoor typhoon had hit the room—or a frozen pipe burst (I’m no expert, so I can’t definitively rule out a typhoon).

Among the damaged goods: drywall, ceiling, carpet, treadmill, my soul, a framed movie poster of “Young Frankenstein,” sofas, chairs and a T-shirt I left down there circa 2011.

Because I’m slow to process bad news, I pondered the situation for a week. In the interim, the damage did not cure itself. I had to take action, which in my line of DNA, is easier said that acted.

I made a few calls, which promptly set into motion a stage of life anthropologists have long since called “The Coming of Men Into the Home.” Usually in the morning they came. In large colorful trucks these water mitigators came. I lead them to the basement and got the hell out of their way.

I’ve never experienced dehumidifier envy before, but buddy, I got it now. After gutting and ripping and slashing out property parts, the water mitigator men placed three magnificent dehumidifiers on the bare floor. They took aim at whatever was soaked and exposed because although water does win, one must still put up a fight.

The best part was the Dexter-like plastic sheet (with a cool blue zipper) they used to cordon the chunk of ruined basement. It’s been the first thing I do when I get home: I scamper to the basement, open the zipper, stick my head in the room, and stare at the dehumidifiers. I don’t know at what point a quirk becomes a troubling hobby, but I’m closing in.

For five days, the water mitigator men have come to my home. I hear them unzip the sheet, and I wonder what they see when they look into the dead room.

After five visits, I’m told their time is up. They will visit one final time to remove the magnificent dehumidifiers and cool blue zipper. Soon, other men with financial ties to basement flooding will come to the home. But they won’t be the water mitigator men.

You never know who you’ll miss, do you?