Monday I woke up with a scratchy sore throat and a super runny nose. No big deal. Its just allergies, right? WRONG. By Tuesday, I felt like I had been run over by a truck – heavy chest, couldn’t swallow, coughing up a lung. Wednesday, I was so delirious; I couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow, except to call the doctor, for an emergency appointment.
Thursday I pulled myself out of bed, forced myself to take a shower, and dragged my ass to the doctor. I was diagnosed with bronchitis AND strep throat. Because when I get sick, I get really fucking sick. I was given a breathing treatment, and a prescription for Levaquin, along with an inhaler. Lovely.
After picking up my medications and settling back home, I managed to do three loads of laundry and got ready for bed. But that’s precisely when all hell broke loose.
While putting the last load into the dryer, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small leak, like a constant stream of water – trickling out from the bottom of a pipe on top of my water heater. Casually, I thought, “Oh my,” and attempted to wrap a washcloth around the leak.
LITTLE DID I KNOW that genius idea would DETACH the broken pipe from the water heater ENIRELY. RUSTY WATER GUSHED OUT, SHOOTING EVERYWHERE. LIKE DIRECTLY INTO MY EYEBALLS, TAKING OUT MY CONTACTS, RENDERING ME BLIND! I ran out of the laundry room and popped in new contacts, because HELLO, VISION was of the UTMOST importance at a time like this.
By the time I came back there was a LEAST a FOOT of WATER. FLOODING MY ENTIRE LAUNDRY ROOM. And that shit would NOT stop spraying!!!!!!!! WATER. FUCKING. EVERYWHERE.
Much like Michael Keaton, in that famous scene from the movie Mr. Mom, I put my hands across my face – shielding my newly contacted eyeballs – and proceeded to battle my way toward the leaking pipe. I had no idea what to do, no idea what to grab, and no idea how to shut the water off. I yanked anything that felt like a nozzle and prayed to the Lord above to make it stop. By the time I found the correct handle I was ankle deep, completely soaked, crying my face off, and shivering.
When the water finally stopped, panic-stricken, I called my neighbors/besticals Claudia and her husband Steve. They were out to dinner when they retrieved my hysterical voicemails; “HI! UM! IT’S MELEAH! A PIPE BURST IN MY LAUNDRY ROOM AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I HAVE BRONCHITS & STREP THROAT AND MY PARENTS ARE IN EUROPE AND MY HOUSE IS FLOODING! AND HOLY FUCK, PLEASE HELP ME!!”
Meanwhile, I texted and called my landlord, a billion times with NO RELPY. And that’s when I also realized, even though the water was OFF when I tried to flush a toilet or wash my hands, like I do 100 times a day, because I’m totes OCD, that would cause more water to leak from the broken pipe.
ARE YOU F%CK*NG KIDDING ME? NOW WHAT?
Luckily, Claudia & Steve talked me off the proverbial ledge. They gave me the number for an emergency plumber, who, thankfully, took pity upon this sick girl and agreed to come to my condo the next morning.
I used every towel I own to soak up all of the water. Then I dried myself off, changed into new pajamas, and got ready for bed, again. My son and his girlfriend tried to console me and reminded me this was ‘blog material’ and told me to write this down. I finally crawled into bed at 11:56pm with the hopes things would be better Friday morning.
When Friday rolled around, I felt sicker than ever. I chugged ½ a bottle of cough syrup and waited for the plumber. And that’s exactly when things went completely downhill.
The side effects from the antibiotics kicked in. My stomach exploded, unmercifully, just like the time I drank the kelp. But I couldn’t flush the toilet, or even brush my teeth, when my landlord showed up at 8am.
Uncaffeinated, disorientated, and desperate to wash my hands, my landlord told me to cancel my emergency plumber because he would have his own plumber install a brand new pipe and a new hot-water-heater by the end of the day. I spent the next few hours rinsing my mouth with Listerine, obsessively using hand-sanitizer, and abusing baby-wipes, attempting to ‘clean’ myself.
As the day progressed, so did my stomach issues, and not being able to flush the toilet proved to be an even bigger issue. I finally figured out that I could remove the lid of the toilet tank and added a gallon of bottled water in order to dispose of my ‘waste’ – because shit filled toilets are NOT MY BAG! However, much my to dismay, that STILL caused water to shoot from the broken pipe.
And, just for the record, for someone with actual obsessive-compulsive-disorder, not being able to wash their hands, especially when they’re sick as fuck, AND especially after going inside a shit filled toilet tank, is in fact, legit TORTURE.
By 11am, I broke down, hysterically crying and screaming, “I JUST WANNA GO HOME!” And then I blew my nose so hard it started bleeding. Blood and snot came blasting through the tissues but I still COULDN’T WASH MY FUCKING HANDS! And that’s when I stopped using baby-wipes and poured straight up bleach on my fingers.
By noon, I considered going to my parents to take a Silk-Wood Shower. Sadly, I couldn’t leave the house because I had no idea when my landlord and/or his plumber would be back to fix the broken pipe / water heater.
My son, on the other hand, had to get ready for work. So he went to my parent’s house to take a shower. ONLY TO DISCOVER THEY DIDN’T HAVE WATER EITHER – BECAUSE THEY SHUT IT OFF – SINCE THEY’RE VACATIONING IN EUROPE FOR THREE WEEKS – AND MY SON HAS NO IDEA HOW TO TURN THE WATER BACK ON! When Justin came home and told me what happened all I could say was, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Sadly, he was not.
Wallowing in my own filth and heavily medicated, I stared out the window. The only highlight of my day was seeing that ‘cat couple’ again.
I spotted them last week and thought they looked so cute, almost like they were on a date, I just had to take a photo.
And then they must have heard me taking their picture because they turned around to face me!
I paced around my condo, twirling my hair, watching those cats, while coughing and crying, “I want my mommy!” like a pathetic baby.
My landlord’s plumber arrived at 1pm. But I wasn’t too confident the plumber actually knew what he was doing. Apparently, you’re supposed to shut off the smoke detectors in your house when changing a hot-water-heater. However, said plumber was unsure how to do that. So for twenty long minutes I listened to the incessant chirping smoke detectors make when they need a new battery.
Two hours later, I overheard the plumber say, “furnace” while talking on his cell-phone asking someone for instructions, in Russian. At that point – I totally lost faith, and feared I may never get the shit out of my toilets, or properly wash my hands, ever again.
Two MORE hours later – after listening to excessive banging, dealing with the smell of gas and fearing my condo might explode at any given moment, my landlord’s plumber FINALLY fixed the problem with the broken pipe and successfully installed the new water heater. Halle-fucking-lujah.
The second he left; I flushed all of my toilets, scrubbed all of the skin off my hands, and brushed the enamel off my teeth. But I still didn’t feel ‘clean.’ Oh no.
An hour after the new water heater heated up – I went right back to doing fucking laundry to clean all of the towels I used to soak up the water from the night before. And then I cleaned my whole house because I felt like everything was disgusting and germ infested. I never scoured my toilets so hard. I poured comet, bleach, cling, and scrubby bubbles down every drain in my entire condo. I sprinkled carpet fresh and doused my house with an entire bottle of Febreeze. I hosed my bed with Lysol. I dusted, and vacuumed, and mopped all of the floors. And then I took that blazing hot shower and scrubbed the fuck out of my hands, again.
And then? I fucking collapsed.
Saturday, I was still too sick to leave the house or enjoy the beautiful weather. And quite frankly, I too exhausted from my traumatic events from the week. So, I re-binged watched all of Season One of GOLIATH on #AmazonPrime [preparing for season two] and I was able to wash my hands as many times as I wanted. And it was fucking awesome.
Sunday, I woke up feeling MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, better. And then I wrote this blog post. And then I started to laugh. HARD. And then it dawned on me – for the first time in FOUR YEARS, I found a way to make the horrific, hilarious again. And that’s something that has been missing from my life for entirely too long. And even though I didn’t totally capture or convey the absolute insanity or the pure comedy of the ‘burst pipe’ situation, it shows that I’m moving in the right direction, because I really haven’t ‘told a story’ or written a post like this in quite sometime.
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On a more personal note…
Maybe, while I was sick and sleeping most of last week, my subconscious had the chance to process – because somehow, magically, I suddenly arrived at this conclusion: Since my breakup, I’ve gone through the traditional ‘five stages of grieving’ – but I didn’t even realize I was doing that – until RIGHT THIS SECOND – LITERALLY, as I am typing these words.
March = Total Shock. DENIAL
April = Survival Mode. ANGER
May = Distracted and Emotional Running. BARGAINING
June = Shit Show. Full Blown Mourning. DEPRESSION
And I don’t need to punish myself anymore for my shortcomings, bad decisions, or mistakes – because it was all just part of the process. Albeit, a very long and a very painful process.
And right now?
I have TOTAL faith.
July will = ACCEPTANCE
And that’s a wrap, folks!
See you next week.
Love,
M
PS: While I am very proud of myself for handling everything and for FINALLY “finding the funny again” – this past week’s experience sure did make me miss the hell out of my parents. I have a whole new level of appreciation for how my mother makes me feel better when I am dying from sickness and how my father makes me feel safe when he always comes to the rescue. And while I am genuinely happy they’re living it up, and enjoying vacation so much, I seriously cannot wait for them to get back home!
