Don’t rain on my Father’s Day

After a full day of running around town, I came home to a blissfully empty house. The kids were still at their dad’s, Mr. W and Frizz were off on some father-son adventure, and the house was totally silent.

Aaaah.

It gave me the much needed time to write out the Father’s Day cards to two of the best dads I know and put the flowers I bought for the occasion in a vase.

And then I had nothing to do.

I emptied the dishwasher and then checked my kombucha. Good thing I did because this heat has it on a three day brewing cycle. The tea was absolutely perfect this time so I enjoyed a healthy glass of it while I brewed a new batch.

Side note: if any of you local peeps want free kombucha or kombucha babies, I have plenty of both. Just let me know.

I was just about to take advantage of the time alone by heading to the pool when Mr. W and Frizz showed back up. I went outside to greet them when I noticed that the water on the front hose appeared to have been turned on. It was weird though, I couldn’t remember it being on when I came home. I tried to turn it off, but it was already off. But a leak in the tube was spraying a small but strong stream of water at the house.

The main had broke.

Mr. W got out his tools and set to work showing Frizz and I where to shut off the water and teaching Frizz how to replace the tube on the main water pipe. We took a field trip to the hardware store where Mr. W chatted up the sales gal on how to properly do this thing while Frizz and I tried out patio sets. When we got home, Mr. W set to work on the pipe, simultaneously making dinner since this was a relatively easy job. An hour later, the pipe was still not holding water and we were getting snippy because we were frustrated and hungry. Mr. W finally turned back off the water, we ate dinner, and he called in the professionals.

The plumber came around 10pm, which means his hourly rate was somewhere between obscene and utterly insane. At that same time, I had to go pick my kids up in Calistoga, the meeting point I’d set up with the kids’ grandpa after their weekend with their dad. I didn’t get back until midnight, and the plumber was still there. Luckily he was just finishing up. Good thing too. The dishes in the sink stunk to high heaven and the Taz smelled even worse from a weekend of hot sweaty play. I made Taz take a shower, and Frizz washed up the dishes when he was done. Mr. W and I, totally exhausted, set about getting ready for bed. We’d “showered” at the pool earlier in the evening when we had no water but were totally sticky gross, but it still felt good to know we had water if we needed it. We were just about to call it a night when we heard a loud POP and the sound of running water.

“What was that?” Mr. W asked. I didn’t want to believe it was the pipe. So I guessed it was someone flushing the toilet or doing a load of wash. You know, cuz everyone likes to do laundry at 1 in the morning. Mr. W went downstairs to check it out. I heard the water stop gushing. And Mr. W came upstairs with a serious look on his face. I thought he was teasing when he said it broke. He wasn’t. And now we have no water again.

As soon as Mr. W wakes up, we’ll call the plumber again. Luckily it’s covered under warranty. But it does put an extremely wet and rusty wrench in our Father’s Day plans for today. No worries though. I refuse to let a stubborn leaky main pipe rain on our parade.

Happy Father’s Day everyone!