Flood Stories

On Friday after Thanksgiving while in Arkansas we heard that a water line break occurred in our Knoxville home with water coming out from under the front and back doors.  Neighbors peeking through the door window could see that the ceiling had come down in places.  So, we began a chain of phones call with insurance, a mitigation company, a helpful neighbor and family and hurried to cover the five hundred miles home expeditiously.  Fortunately nothing of importance, like pictures, books, cherished objects, etc. was damaged.  Mainly floors and ceiling.  The origin was a plastic nut attached to a commode water tank that failed and allowed water to be sprayed in the upstairs master bath.  Likely occurred not long after we left on Wednesday.  A neighbor cut the water off on Thursday.  Mitigation began Friday evening.  The picture to the left was taken in what we call the office room.  We are not worried much about this.  We are being treated fairly by our insurance and service companies.  It has been quite disruptive to our routine but, so be it. 

It has been my privilege to hear a number of flood stories from various people I have run into since then.  For whenever I describe what happened to us, the ones with whom I'm discussing will have their stories to tell.  I never knew water leakage problems were so widespread.  There must be a fascination with this type of problem that other difficult house situations do not exhibit.  There is something about water and what it can do that goes deep into the human psyche and this has been manifested to me by this event. 

I never watched the Phil Donahue show much.  It was the precursor to Oprah Winfrey and earlier in the day so I only had the opportunity if sick or on vacation.  One thing he said in one of those rare shows made a very big impression on me.  He related why he was oriented toward communicating with women and what he admired about them.  He said that if you have a group of women meeting together and one of them shows up with a cast on her leg, the other ladies will ask how it happened, how does she feel, what did the doctor say, ie. focus on the person with the cast.  He said when a man with a cast joins a group of men, it will be a competition of each saying in essence, "you should hear what happened to me"  or "I've got one better than that."  Some of my acquaintances have been like that but others have been more empathetic.  There are a couple of guys I know that if I were to tell them I had won a Nobel prize in Physics, they would have to top it with some story of theirs.