My son stayed home sick from school today. Last night he was violently ill with a fast on-set stomach flu. He vomited for hours. Nothing stayed in, not even water. As fortune would have it, this was actually a good thing.
When I left for work this morning (and yes, I had to go to work, today was payroll day, I didn't want angry employees when they didn't get paychecks on the next pay day), it was 20 degrees. The overnight low was 18. I'm sure there are places in the US where 18 doesn't sound like a big deal. Here in "sunny" California 18 is darn cold. We see maybe one night a year that reaches the teens.
A few hours later, my son called. A water pipe had broken. He was standing in the kitchen and heard gushing water. The front walk was flooded. The neighbor's adjoining yard was flooded. The flowerbeds were flooded. As far as broken water pipes go, this one was pretty lucky. It was an outside pipe, so I'm pretty sure nothing in the house was damaged. Even if there is some damage, the pipe is attached to the garage so nothing to the main living structure. Plus, the Cool Whip on top of what could have been a very bad situation, my son was home sick to catch the problem and alert me.
I am not a do-it-yourself whiz. We managed through a series of phone calls to get someone to talk my son through shutting off the main line to the house. The plumber is called. The water has subsided in the yard. Hopefully my water bill won't be too terrible. It was only a couple of hours from break to shut-off. As a whole, not too bad for a minor home-ownership emergency.
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