When it rains, it pours. Lately, it seems like everything that can go wrong, will. In the last few years, we’ve had several furry family members, other family members, and even some friends die. We’ve had multiple appliances break down and need repairing or replacing. We’ve had car accidents resulting in needing a new car. We’ve also had expensive maintenance on our house.
And if that isn’t bad enough, at least Melinda and I are having health issues. Melinda’s fibromyalgia and my arthritis are making it difficult for us to keep up with our chores. The gentlemen in our household aren’t going to pick up the slack so some things just aren’t getting done as often as they should.
It also doesn’t look like things are going to settle down anytime soon.
A few weeks ago, Jerry asked a mechanic how much it would cost for some regular maintenance on our car. I was hoping it would be just a lube, oil, and filter.
Nope.
The transmission and brakes are due for service. It’ll be over a thousand dollars. The only bright spot is that we have some leeway to save for it.
I’m to the point of thinking we have this under control when Jerry decides he has to take his dog to the vet. The issue? He thinks the dog has an ear infection. What does he come home with? Stuff to clean dogs’ ears. Something that we already have in the house and Melinda has told him that. Over a hundred dollars we didn’t have to have a vet tell him exactly what our resident vet tech already had. (Part of that was just the fee to see the vet. The other part was the bottle of medicine we did not need.)
But the most stressful day recently was last Thursday.
Sometime in the middle of the night, early last Thursday, Royce and I heard a loud crashing noise. I was too tired to investigate it (already asleep in bed). Royce wasn’t asleep and did look around but couldn’t figure out where it came from.
Then around ten or eleven in the morning, Jerry left the house to go somewhere and noticed water flowing out of our garage.
Clearly, there was a problem somewhere.
We stepped into the garage to find water everywhere and a gaping hole in the ceiling in the corner near our hot water heater. Water soaked most of the garage, including many of the boxes we had stored out there. The smell from all those musty boxes was so overpowering that all four of us had issues with our asthma.
With water still dripping from somewhere, the first step was to shut off our water supply. The second was to call the plumber. Jerry dealt with the first while I dealt with the second.
The first issue was without water we couldn’t flush. Well, okay we could flush once for each toilet. With everyone being adults, we were sensible enough to know that we didn’t have to flush every single time. (You know only flush if it is brown, or red.) I used both flushes within an hour.
The second issue was the heat. Being over a hundred degrees out meant family members, especially those with fur, or in my case, diabetes, would need plenty of water. Fortunately, I have a twenty-litter jug which I had recently filled. Also, the plumber came fairly quickly and was able to figure out where the water was coming from and get our water back on.
He also told us to call our homeowners insurance. But then so did my friend from church whom I’d contacted to see if we could get help with the clean-up, which was clearly going to be a major undertaking considering how full the garage was. And that was just considering everything stored there. I still do not know how much sheetrock or insulation or anything else will need replacing.
Anyway, within a few hours, we had two guys here. One was the plumber. One was a guy from a company that cleans up water damage like this. Not repairs, just clean it up so someone else can repair it. One of their jobs is to make sure any mold is dealt with.
This is a good thing. Melinda is highly allergic to mold and before the day was over she was having a major reaction bad enough to consider using her EpiPen. Thankfully, Benadryl worked.
And our insurance said they are sending out their investigator this morning to assess the damage. Though everyone, even the people we’ve talked to from our insurance, are assuming this is covered. Hopefully, because we certainly couldn’t repair all that damage on our own.
Smile. Make the day a brighter day.
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