My Unsightly Bulge

No, this is not a post about my waistline (although that would not be an inappropriate title, I'm afraid).

This is about the huge unsightly bulge that I discovered in my kitchen ceiling on Friday, just 3 hours before Shabbat. It was perfectly round, like an upside down dome. I knew right away what it was.

It was divine retribution for not listening to my mother.

She had been warning me for weeks that the radiator in my upstairs bathroom was leaking, and that the water would drip through the floor and into the ceiling below. I'm always kvetching that I have too many things to worry about, and I didn't want to deal with this too. So I ignored her warnings. And of course, she turned out to be right.

I frantically called the plumber, telling him that he had to come over right now, before the bubble burst and my whole ceiling collapsed. He said he'd be right over, and showed up two hours later. It was now 1 hour before Shabbat. He came in, looked at the bulge and said "Wow!" (that was not what I wanted to hear). He pulled out a knife, cut a small slit in the latex paint, and held up a bucket. About a gallon of brown, smelly water came pouring out of the ceiling into the bucket. I gasped, my daughters said "ewwww!" and my son said, "that is so cool!"

Long story short: he fixed the leak by changing the valves on the radiator, charged me almost $400 (ohmygodIcan'taffordthis) and finally left 7 minutes before Shabbat. Flash had not been able to shower (because the plumber was working in our one and only bathroom) and so, for the first time in his life, he put on a suit and went to shul unshowered. (I hope God wasn't offended.)

Now I have two problems:
1) I have to get someone to repaint that section of my ceiling, which will cost more money.
2) I have to tell my mother. She will definitely say "I told you so".

Lesson: Mom knows best. Pretty much always. When will I learn?