Drip, drip, drip

You know how sometimes your subconcious is more aware of your surroundings, or should I say "unusual" things in your surroundings, than your busy with a million and one things-hurryhurryhurry-consious mind? Well, at some point Christmas day when I was down in the basement putting a load of laundry in I had a fleeting OhShit thought. There was water in the basement. Not a lot. We regularly get water in the basement when it rains. The house is almost 70 years old and is in an area with a high water table and gets water when it rains. It had recently rained a little. So, nothing unusual or worthy of the OhShit my subconsious was trying to tell me.

Fast forward a few hours...still Christmas day. Now, the dishwasher has been run and the 2 year old, Jake, has had a "you Will be clean when we have Nana, Nana, Pop-Pop, your Aunt Sam, Uncle Tony, and 4 of your cousins over for Christmas dinner if it kills one of us" bath, and now I am in the kitchen starting to clean veggies for said meal....

Addison goes into the basement for some reason and YELLS for me to get down there with him in that voice that means either the house is on fire or something else equally severe has happened/is happening...

There is water in the basement.
There is the splish-splash sound a fountain makes.
There is the smell of a sewer.

There is NO sign of water coming IN from the outside (this is what my subconsious was trying to tell me when I first went, hmmm there's a little water in the basement). DOH!

So, while I attempt to cook dinner for 14 people Addison gets to call a plumber ON CHRISTMAS! Now, there's a merry time for all.

We called our guests to request that they please do any flushing at their own houses prior to coming to ours.

I was looking at the prospect of a quick tub bath and then just not draining it...I had last had a shower on the 23rd. No way was I hosting Christmas dinner in the state I was in...pipes or no pipes!

Turns out our cast iron 60+ year old pipes had had it. The plumber was from a company called SECCO, and was amazingly wonderful! They don't charge by the hour. I'll say that again (we were mumbling it to ourselves increadulously for two days), THEY DON'T CHARGE BY THE HOUR!!!! The entire $4,000+ bill was quoted up front. He patched the house together Christmas night so that we could flush the toilets, and do whatever was neccesary. Then, he and another very professional plumber-type guy came back the next day and replaced all of the water pipes in the basement.

When the plumber guy was leaving Christmas night my Mom-in-law started to ask how the furnace was doing. We couldn't shut her up fast enough!! Cross your fingers that the Fates didn't hear her...