Prime Blogging Material

The basement flooded on Wednesday. Nothing too deep, but deep enough that the thick carpet in my room was completely soaked, with small pools on top, according to my roommates. I've currently transported my computer to Troy's house while the carpet dries out. I've been trying to spend as little time at home as possible, since the entire downstairs smells like wet rug. It's pretty gross.

If only I could say that this was the fault of some broken water line or kitchen piping disaster. The story's pretty funny, but only if you have a high tolerance for the stupidity of others. As luck would have it, I generally do. If you don't you may want to change your channel now.

My basement room has a big window well that lets sun and air into my otherwise underground room. Right outside this window well is a small garden area and a hose our landlords use to water said area. It's also apparently a convenient place to wash your car, as regularly this kid comes by to wash his truck. I only found this out after the fact, but apparently no one in the house currently knows this kid beyond his name. He used to know people who lived here last semester. He doesn't even live in the ward anymore, but he still regularly comes by to wash his car.

Apparently, sometime on Wednesday he came by. Once he was done, he left the hose on full blast and drove away. Right next to my window well. Which proceeded to flood. Did I mention I leave my window open pretty much all the time?

Several hours later (I wasn't home at the time) my roommate noticed water seeping out from under my door. She ran in and started moving all my stuff that was on the floor. My miracle roommate Ashton somehow acquired a water vacuum and a giant fan, and they started soaking up the water from the floor as best they could. They eventually called me, and I came home pretty soon after that.

The water spread pretty far. Both my roommates had wet carpets a foot or two into their rooms, and the hallway was pretty wet. My entire room - every corner - was soaked, all the way to the back of my walk-in closet. The fan's been on full blast the entire time, and I've run the water vacuum over the carpet twice more. (Question: how much water can a thick carpet and carpet padding hold? Answer: A whole effing lot.) I'm almost out of fabreeze trying to keep the wet carpet smell to a minimum.

I'm really grateful my roommates moved my stuff as fast as they did. I'm actually extremely lucky - my computer's fine, all my books are fine, my files are fine. Very few things were ruined, and none of it important or at least irreplaceable. I miraculously straightened my room right before leaving, so some of this stuff missed getting ruined by mere hours.

We've tried contacting Mr. Car Wash Genius, but as far as I know he hasn't gotten back to anyone who's called him. Overall this has been a pretty funny episode in my summer vacation. As soon as the situation had really sunk in I whipped out my camera, thinking "this is SO going in my blog." Pictures will be forthcoming once my camera, computers, and wires are all in the same place.