Once Upon a Time Wednesday...

Once Upon a Time Wednesday will hopefully get me to post on more Wednesdays ;) And, as the title sort of states, will feature an interesting/amusing story or vignette from my life. Fun! :)

So enjoy, at my expense... ;)

Once upon a time when I was living in Maryland, I was doing some laundry on a cold, cold weekend in February. My boyfriend at the time was not home, and I was upstairs on the third floor minding my own business. I suddenly became aware of a very low, continuous beep. Ignored it for a little while... nope, still there. Going down to the second floor, hey, there's that beep, a little louder! I head down to the first floor and the garage where the washer & dryer are, and the beep becomes a minor roar. Upon opening the door to the garage I find .... the entire thing flooded with about an inch of water.

WHOA! The beep is pretty deafening now so I run into the washroom, as it's most definitely coming from there. Somewhere, there is something alerting me that MY WASHROOM AND GARAGE ARE FLOODED. But I don't think of that. I'm thinking that I'm standing in an inch of water while something electric is beeping, and about to blow.

So, I freak out and climb up onto the washer. .. The metal washer. Good one, Thomas Jefferson. (He flew the key on the kite into the electric storm, right?)

I can't find what the hell is causing this shrill kill-me-now consta-beep, so I climb off the washer, run upstairs, and as any young dumb and freaked out 20-something would do ... call 911. I think the call went something like this:

Operator: "911, your emergency please."
Me: "Uuuuhhhh hi my garage and washing room are flooded and there's this thing that's beeping and I don't know what it is but there's water everywhere and I'm like really worried about electric shock and stuff."
Operator: (probably banging head on desk) "We'll send someone over."

So yeah, not the best 911 emergency. But I didn't know what else to do!

Anyways, not two minutes later, I hear not one but TWO fire trucks in the distance... sirens... and they come screaming down our tiny little hill road into our tiny little cul-de-sac that is SO not even big for a Power Wheels fire truck. (Do they have those?) Not only am I already embarassed, but I'm shaping up to be the talk of the neighborhood.

I open my garage door and a minor tidal wave of water floods out over the boots of some pretty strapping firemen, I remind you that it's February in Maryland and it's pretty chilly out. I lead them into the washing room and one of the firemen instantly goes to a little wire on the wall, bends it up, and the beep stops. .... Oh. Teehee. Can I get you a cookie, or perhaps some animal crackers? Okay, so that's out of the way, and we determine that one of our water exit pipes has frozen and all the water blasted back out of the machine.

However, to make sure of this, I needed to empty the machine for them to look at. Oh, you know what I was washing? Yeah, I emptied all of my cold and soaking underwear, bras, and other assorted lacy underthings while three completely suited up firemen watch me. That was about ten seconds of absolutely awkward silence and embarassing hot flashes that I will never be able to scratch from my mind.

The machine was okay, they say good day, and leave. And I immediately bury myself under 10 pounds of blankets and feel like an absolute imbecile!!



The end. :)