There goes that plan

Sitting next to my house is an empty house. Lately, I have been comtemplating packing up my stuff and moving in. It's not that I don't like the person living in the basement, it's more that I don't like someon living in the basement. I want to wash dishes and take a bath without someone knowing. I want to break out into song and rock out on my guitar without hurting the ears of someone else. It seems extravagent to move over. I really don't need the extra spce, extra bathroom or extra kitchen. I don't want it. I just want more privacy.

Well this week, I was actin principal. The MD phoned me. "The water plant can not keep up. We keep on emptying. Is there water running at the school?" You see the school is one of the only places that draws directly from the water treatment plant. The rest of the community trucks it to their resevoirs. I checked around the school but had a sneaking suspicion that it might be the empty house. So I hunted down a key and treked over to the house.

As soon as I put my ear to the door, I could hear the rush of water. I opened the door to see water lapping at the basement stairs. I threw my keys on the stairs towards the upstairs (that house keys and my house keys - do you see where this is going?). I went downstairs, waded through 6 inches of water, saw th hole that the water pressure had bore through the wall. Went through the waterfall into the laundry room looking for a shut off valve. Saw nothing. At this point I started to panic. I went upstairs to go to the school and phone the maintenance people. I shut the door behind me. I locked the door behind me. (Do you see where this is going yet?)

As I was walking to the school, I came to the awful realization that I only had the school keys on me. I did not have my house keys or the keys to our new basement swimming pool. So I started looking for help from the few teachers that were in town that week. I went to the office, gathered up all the keys I could to try to find another set to get me in the house. No luck. So I went to phone our principal to see if she had a set of keys at her house. No answer. A litany of how stupid I was was now running through my head. My and keys, it is a saga of problems and stupidity.

That is when we used the crowbar - the biggest monster crowbar I have ever seen. This is the second time in my Trout existence that I have had to take a crowbar to a door. By the time we got into the basement again, the water was about 8 inches deep. Finally we turned off the water and electricity.

So I want be moving into that house for awhile. The basement wall has a hole in it. The pipes have possible multiple holes in them. There will probably be mildew problems and then there is the compromised door frame.

So this morning, I was alone and took some time to squack on my flute and rock out on my acoustic guitar. It felt good to sing and raise my voice. I need to find the time to do it more often.