So you had a bad day...

I'm minding my own business at work, eating a nice pizza for lunch when Ange calls me up and tells me that our basement has once again flooded. We spent $4000 or so last fall to keep water from flooding from the outside. This flood came from the inside. The pipes had backed up, and water had come through the drain into our newly finished downstairs family room.

We spent the rest of the day dealing with the flood. We had a plumber over to try to clear up the blockage, but he couldn't help and referred us to another company that could. They unclogged the pipes, and said they were blocked some 70 feet from where they were.

The cleanup company came and cut out our carpet and put fans to dry everything up. Since there was a possibility that it was sewer water, they told us we had to cut the carpet out, and we had to depart with 10 year old towels that were given to us as a wedding present. They were old, of course, but I don't usually buy towels until they're absolutely necessary.

Everybody left, and we went on with the two hour project of getting the kids in bed. At about 10 pm or so, the kids had eaten and were down to sleep, I look and Ange and tell her that it's finally time to get to bed, and put this horrible day behind us.

Then Ange says "I think I smell natural gas."

Of course, she did smell natural gas, so we called the gas company, woke up the kids, got them out of the house, and waited for the nice gas man.

There was no leak. As most of you probably suspected, the chances of having main water line backup and a gas leak on the same day are astronomical, and so the problems were probably somehow related. So it was. The fans blew out the pilot light to our water heater, and gas seeped out for a couple of minutes before it shut off.

Our little family was very tired the next day.

In the end, our insurance company (in the long run, us) is paying for brand new carpet for most of our downstairs and upstairs, which is nice, since we need new carpet. I think it goes to show that there is usually a silver lining to most bad situations... except having a two year old.