Sunday, February 8, 2009

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?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry about the incident.

I like the way your son chose to perceive the brownish water...typical, mine would have said the same thing.

Our mothers...their voices are always there, even if they aren't physically present.

Trip'n Mommy said...

Well, look on the bright side:

1. The ceiling did not collapse! On Shabbos!

2. One day, your own children will realize the YOU are always right! It might take 20 years, but it is out there...

However, I am NOT showing this post to MY mother ;-)

Anonymous said...

How awful! And the bill sounds like a lot of money.

RivkA with a capital A said...

ugh! it's times like that I wish I married someone handy.....

I can't stand paying so much money for the things I could do myself, but never will!

Ezzie said...

Ouch... :(

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that! Funny how these things are always erev shabbos or on Shabbos. I can relate somewhat. At my parents apartment, there was a leak in the bathroom above them for years!! Our ceiling repeatedly bubbled up and collapsed. Finally the problem was fixed but oy the tsurus.

Sally Hazel said...

A rather unpleasant story!
Amusingly or sadly enough, I had a wet ceiling for months, too. And last Friday, 30 minutes before shabbos started leaking a small but fast stream of water. Now we, too, either have to make a hole in the ceiling or have the pleasure of bathing by extended family...

Rafi G. said...

mom always knows best.

SuperRaizy said...

I told my mom what happened. She was very nice and didn't say "I told you so".

Baila said...

When we had the house in Cedarhurst with the old boiler, we used to have to fill it up with water. One Friday Isaac went downstair to do it, pulled the lever to fill the boiler and left, forgetting to pull the lever back to turn it off. A half hour later Shabbat started. My daughter went down to the basement and ran upstairs to tell us their was lots of water in the basement. In addition the radiators in the house had begun filling up with water to. And the ceiling in the dining room started to bulge. We watched it anxiously for a few hours, it started to drip and looked like it was going to explode. We couldn't call anyone because it was Shabbat. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, I took the end of a broom stick and jabbed it into the ceiling (which by now was very soft from the water), and gushes of water came cascading down into dining room. We cleaned that up and were able to go to sleep. That Shabbat, wouldn't you know it, we were having company. The ceiling had basically stopped leaking except for an occasional drip which landed on our friends Shai's head every coupla minutes.

Good times, good times.

Jack Steiner said...

Glad that it was fixed.

SuperRaizy said...

Baila-
Oh God, that's awful. Poor Shai.
Jack-
Thanks.

Anonymous said...

I once replaced ALL my radiator valves at once, figuring the cost would be less than doing each one on an emergency basis. That might have been true had we not decided to sell the house just a few years later. As it is, it ended up being a oomplete waste of money.

In that same house, we had wall air conditioners installed at a big expense ... and years later, we installed central air, closed the holes, fixed the walls, etc.

When I think of the $$$ I spent that might have been avoided with a little foresight I can just cry.