Here we go again.

I thought I was getting hydrophobia until I looked it up.  Turns out hydrophobia is fear of rabies, and I don’t have that.  What I’m in danger of contracting is aquaphobia. 

Let me explain.

Late this morning, I went into the front bathroom and found a lake of water all over the vanity.  I started to hollar at the kids because everytime I go in there I have to clean up some mess or another. 

So I’m wiping down the pond of water and giving Sassy the run down on how to wash one’s hands without flooding the bathroom, when I feel a big drop of water on my arm.  Then one hits the marble and makes a pretty little “plink” sound.  My brow furrows.  I look up.

“HONEY!” I yell, and then to Sassy,  “Go get your father!”

There is a steady stream of water coming from my bathroom ceiling.  It’s dripping directly on to the sink but also onto the medicine cabinet that sits out from the wall.  From there, the water is running down all over the piles of tchotchkes (Michelle – here is the link) that litter the decorative shelves.

I begged My Honey to let me sell the house without even going up into the crawl space.  But no, he had to look.

First, that involved taking a sword and battling Sassy’s closet where the hatch to the crawl space is located.  I didn’t assist.  Every time I go into Sassy’s closet, my head explodes.  I heard noises coming out of her room that sounded like Fibber Mcgee and Molly’s old radio show.  They would open the closet and a loud cacophony of crap would come crashing out.  Remember it was radio, but you could totally picture it in your head.  Anyway, from her closet came crashing and yelling culminating with, “Clean this sh!t up!”

To top matters off, our cooler was blowing hot air.  And I had a migraine I received on Friday evening from the flashing lights of *&%^#! red light cameras our city is installing in a misguided attempt to “protect the citizens” from red light runners and speeders.  Things were not rosy at the Bright Compound.  I begged My Honey again to let me sell the house.

I checked on airline fares to Greece.

The verdict – so far – is that the galvanized pipe in the crawl space is rusted and leaking.  Also, the crawl space is too small for My Honey to crawl into.  Really “crawl space” is much too liberal a term.  “Slither space” is really more apt.  I briefly considered shoving The Bandit up there.  I even went so far as to explain that he had to stay on the joists so as not to fall through the ceiling.  He and his sister thought I was kidding, but if he’s not going to take the job seriously, then I’m not sending him up there just to screw around and get out of cleaning his room.

My Brother The Plumber is coming by in the morning.  I’ll leave him a key and a blank check – stained with my tears.  I’ll also keep you posted.  I suspect this job will get bigger based on how smoothly the army man incident went.

I  wonder, is there an official word for fear of plumbing?