Saturday...what a day...

Boy, did I have a doozy of a day today.

As is the case every Saturday morning, I get up after sleeping as long as possible, go into the dining area that houses my computer desk, turn on the computer, and do whatever. After a few minutes I notice a quiet dripping sound and think nothing of it. Must be the upstairs neighbors washing dishes in the sink or something. I pay it no mind. After a few minutes, I go into the kitchen to get myself a drink when I notice something different. A puddle of water on the floor. Odd.

I start looking for the source of the leak, but can't find one, even after opening the dishwasher to investigate what turned out to be a completely dry dishwasher. I go back to the computer and think nothing of it, when all of the sudden there's a fairly loud dripping sound coming from the kitchen. Aha! Now I can track down the source of the puddle! As I look into the kitchen, I discovered something bad. The puddle had grown to a size that almost covered my entire kitchen floor! As I look at the sink, I see a rather large and substantial amount of water dripping from the upper cabinets!!! Uh oh. Not good.

As I reach for the nearest cup to catch the water, I am quickly overwhelmed by the amount of liquid seeping down from above. We're gonna need a bigger cup. Quite rapidly I am running for the two buckets I own and placing them under the worst spots, splashing through the small lake now accumulated on my kitchen floor. I start to panic.

I immediately turn off the small light above the sink, and turn off the overhead light. Next I dash to the cell phone and call up the residence center of my apartment complex, spouting something about a maintenance emergency... It all was a blur. More and more leaks are blooming up all around my kitchen, and I pray to God that nothing shorts out. To my utter horror, I watch helplessly as a small pocket of water begins to build up under the nearest electrical outlet in the kitchen, held in place by the paint on the wall! At its largest, it measured about 5 inches wide and must have contained several ounces of water. My life begins to flash before my eyes!

After what seems like an eternity, the maintenance dudes show up. Actually, they looked more like local high school students. The lazy kind. As they survey the leaky submarine that is my kitchen, I direct them to the upstairs neighbors, clearly the source of the massive leak. As they climb the stairs to inform the neighbors of the leak, I hear them knock briskly and yell the usual "Maintenance!" to the tenants within. No answer. Not to worry, they have a key! ...wait, they don't have the key! I feel my knees give way a little as my lip begins to quiver...

As slowly as they showed up, they turn coat and do a Speedy Gonzales away from my leaky kitchen, to fetch the key to the empty upstairs apartment. They don't show up for another eternity. Meanwhile, I'm making like Sean Penn in a leaky boat in downtown New Orleans, frantically tossing water out of the place, only for it to be replaced with twice as much water. The apartment begins to smell. What bliss.

After the maintenance Senior classmen empty the remaining water out of the upstairs kitchen, I find out the source of the leak. Turns out the water heater had gone kaput, thus showering my kitchen with love. After they replace the water heater, they nonchalantly tell me that they'll call the people to come and take care of my little water problem. Off they ride into the sunset on their little motorized cart, leaving me and my little lake behind. Actually, it was more like a swamp, seeing as how my carpet was beginning to absorb a good portion of the lake in my kitchen.

About 2 hours later, the carpet man shows up to suck up the remaining water. He informs me that he only just got the call, which leads me to belive that those lazy maintenance men went to play their PSP for a while before calling the guy up. Can you say "free 1 month rent"? Anyhoo, we proceed to relocate many pieces of furniture out of the swampland, and he begins to pull up the wet carpet, and remove the thoroughly soaked under padding. As he tries to start the suction pump, no less than three people decide they must leave that very moment, so he must stop, move his van so they can drive away, then return to deal with my problem. I, by the way, have not showered, and have exerted myself to the level of one of those athletes in a Gatorade commercial, only it sure as hell ain't Gatorade coming out of my pores.

Finally, the carpet dude finishes cleaning up all the excess water, and bids me adieu, saying he'll be back by Tuesday to add the new under padding and pin the carpet back down. I wave him goodbye, collapse down into my chair, and quickly get up, for fear that the sweat stain will be forever engrained into the fabric. I jump into the shower, and clean myself off, prepared to tackle the day. Wait a minute, the day's over...

So, how was your day?