Hot Water

"How does the hot bath feel?" Julie called from the other room.

"Excellent!" I replied. "A claw foot tub is way better than bathing in the kitchen sink,"

With a gigantic smile on my face and my knees in my chest I lounged like a sardine in a can in a miniature claw foot tub that measured only four feet long. There wasn't even room for a rubber ducky.

I mentioned in a previous post how life seems to turn on a dime.  I have to say that ever since we hit that dime in the road on Virginia, everything seemed to spin out of control.  Sometimes the tiniest of things sent us reeling like Dorothy traveling to the Land of Oz in a twister. 

For instance, three little drops of water on the floor in a high traffic area doesn't seem like much of problem does it?  Maybe one of the girls scooted by and spilled some of their drink.  Maybe Cody had just finished slurping water from his dish, and the droplets fell from his mouth as he trotted to the living room.  Maybe, however, just maybe, those tiny beads of water precluded an epic flood.  Probably not.  What are the odds?

"Julie, did you spill something on the floor," I called from the mud room.

I'm not sure why, but  I glanced up.  Maybe it was just my imagination, but in the narrow space between the ship lap ceiling boards, I caught a faint sparkle. 

"It's probably just the polyurethane coating," I said to myself.  I decided to check it out.  Climbing up on a ladder I reached out to the ceiling only to feel cool, damp, soft wood. 

"Crap!"

My heart raced, and my stomach felt like lead.  We had already taken a big hit with painting the exterior and replacing both A/C's.   Surely this was only a small leak. easily repaired.  A "flesh wound" as the Black Knight would say.  But like Monte Python's Black Knight, both of my arms had been cut off.  I have since learned that the words small, easy and cheap do not exist in the world of one hundred year old homes.

A "highly recommended" contractor showed up the next day.  "We are going to have to rip out the shower and tub upstairs," he said. 

I didn't say a word but just stared at him.

"When they originally installed your tub, it was not supported correctly, so it's falling through the floor,"

I looked up at the ceiling above and could see it bowing.

He continued. "Your downstairs shower needs to be replaced as well.  It's leaking through the floor and rotting the wood,"

As we reviewed his bid, I noticed that it seemed to have too many zeros.  My head spun, and I felt a little dizzy.  I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but I found myself huddled up in a lawn chair under a bush in the far corner of our back yard, blubbering like a baby.

"Is he alright?" the contractor asked my wife?

"He will be fine," Julie replied.  "We will call you tomorrow,"

That night we talked about renting the movie, The Money Pit, but decided against it.  Our family was about to grow a lot stronger together.