Clearly, we have offended the Water Gods. Over the years, the following things have happened in our house:
1. My husband turned on the kitchen sink faucet one night and a geyser of brown water approximately the size and velocity of Old Faithful shot up from the spray attachment.
2. A pinhole leak developed in the water line that went to the ice maker, gradually turning the brand new laminate floor we had just installed in the kitchen into cardboard mush, despite my repeated inquiries, "Did somebody drop an ice cube here?"
3. The washing machine began belching water every time I turned it on, and continued doing so until I pulled up a chair, sat down and watched it through an entire washing cycle (yes, this is how I spend my time) and deduced that, in fact, it was the WATER HEATER which was leaking.
4. A mysterious puddle appeared in the hallway outside the downstairs bathroom and stayed there for the better part of a year despite the best efforts of an entire brain trust (to use the term loosely) of plumbing companies to figure out where it was coming from. The puddle lasted so long the carpet grew mushrooms--yes, mushrooms--and had to be replaced. After tearing up three walls, repairing the roof and jackhammering through the foundation of the house, we discovered it was a) a badly aimed shower head, combined with b) a leaking toilet seal. Total cost: about $2,500. Note to file: State Farm covers the cost of jackhammering the foundation when there is a leak to be fixed down there. If it turns out you jackhammered and do not find a leak, State Farm will tell you very nicely to kiss their ass. Especially if this happens right after Hurricane Katrina.
So you may understand why, when I heard a dripping sound in the laundry room last night, my right eye started that twitchy thing again. I looked around and discovered that the pipe leading from the water heater into the bowels of the house was leaking. Copiously. We're talking enough to fill a large bucket in the space of an hour. I informed my husband that we had a Plumbing Emergency. His reaction was, "Can it wait until morning?"
"No," I said decisively. "We need a plumber NOW. In the morning it will be a lake in there."
The first plumber I called was one we had used last year during the Mystery Puddle Saga, and they refused to come. Well, they didn't exactly refuse, but they sure dragged their feet about finding somebody who was "available" and they sounded suspiciously la-di-da when I finally called them and said I'd gotten somebody else. I suspect they still hold a grudge from when I called one of their guys a "moron" last year. In a fax. Which was read by the entire office. (People can be so sensitive.)
In the end, the problem last night proved to be, yup, the water line to the ice maker again. The little plastic tube had been resting against a hot water line into the water heater and so it wasn't the big iron pipe that was leaking, as I had so decisively assumed, but the little plastic tuby thing, which had melted through and which we could have fixed easily with four inches of duct tape. Have I mentioned that my husband works for NASA, the same guys who brought Apollo 13 back from the moon by using duct tape? Not that I blame my husband; I was the one who had jumped to conclusions. It just seems ironic, is all.
Anyway, the total bill for last night came to $350. That puts this fiasco in a league above the last dumb-ass thing I did, which was to call a plumber to unclog the garbage disposal unit. He put a beefy pinky down there, retrieved a red plastic spoon from my daughter's tea set, and said, "That'll be $100."
If anybody knows how to soothe the wrath of a pissed off Water God, and where one goes to do it, I'll be in the upstairs bathroom. I just heard the toilet up there running.