I don’t normally Twitter-ship, but it’s the best way to blog this:

about 10 hours ago from digsby: 5-starred Don’t Speak and Underneath It All on Hard…singing & guitar simultaneously. Only 4 stars on expert tho’
about 8 hours ago from digsby*&#@!!!! We just had a pipe burst, spewing water through the wall and all over the place for about 20 mins before we got the water shut off.
about 8 hours ago from digsby At least it was a hot water pipe
about 8 hours ago from digsby: Thank goodness (and our night owl selves) that we were awake. Otherwise, our whole house would have flooded before we knew.

Because today was to be a light day for work, I stayed up late and waited for my DH to get home from the casino. I worked on our holiday card (which is in the mail for anyone whose address I had) and used my brand new mic stand (from B* – yay thank you!) to test out my Mad NoDoubt Skillz. Then, DH got home, and we adjourned to the bedroom. While we were letting a Season 1 30 Rock ep lull us to sleep, I heard something that sounded like loud static. I thought something was wrong with the TV, but I muted it, and the noise was still there. I roused DH to take a look, and once he figured out what I was talking about, he said, “WATER!” and we ran to the laundry room. Water was spewing everywhere, like a fountain. It was hot water. DH’s chest got burned a little, as he fought his way to the source. We thought the water pipe was backing up at first or that the laundry machine’s valve had burst, so we tried to turn off the water sources for the laundry, but that didn’t stop it. DH realized that the water was actually coming out of the wall. Our hot water pipe had burst and the ensuring spewage had burst through the wall. There was 3 inches of standing water in our laundry room, soaking into our hallway, spilling into the garage. Our shoes, Pancake’s litter, and our coats all got soaked. While we were shutting off the water, we realized it was raining in our basement crawl space, and a small waterfall had formed where the crawlspace becomes a walking space.

We managed to find the main water valve cut off and shut off the water to the house, which stopped the incoming flow. Then, while I got out our handy-dandy shopvac out of the garage (best $30 I’ve spent, for all the times it’s de-flooded us) and set it up to start sucking up the excess, DH called our homeowners’ insurance to start the process of clean-up and recovery. As of right now, Homepro is setting up fans, dryers, and dehumidifiers in the laundry room, hallway, 1st floor bathroom, and basement storage area.

A bunch of my pictures, posters, and such from the old apartment got ruined. I’d had them in storage, still in the box from when I moved, along with a bunch of silverware, my old microwave, and my old toaster. I thought they’d gotten lost in the move, so it wasn’t as painful to lose them as you’d think. All of DH’s records and tax forms for the past 10 years got soaked.

But, we are thankful for what is good, despite the bad:

• (TMI alert – highlight to read) We almost had sex instead of watching 30 Rock, but I didn’t want to get messy right before bed, and I was tired. It was bad enough that we were buck naked while doing most of the initial panic and clean-up, but can you imagine if we had been mid-coitus? (/TMI)
• Most of what got destroyed this time was stuff that we had in “deep storage”…meaning we hadn’t touched it in years. It’s probably for the best that we’re cleaning it out and throwing it out. The tax forms and papers were, unfortunately, in that area because they’d gotten re-located to high ground after the basement flood last year.
• The Homepro people think that the carpet, pad, and walls will dry out. Granted, it’ll take 2-3 days of us having loud fans going…and this time it’s in our primary living and walking space instead of in the basement where we can shut it off and ignore it. Well, I guess we’ll just watch TV and “live” in the basement for awhile, as the fans down in the basement are not nearly as loud.
• We were awake. If we had been asleep, who knows how bad it would have gotten before we realized something was wrong?

For those with holiday plans with us, things are a bit TBD right now. We’ll keep in touch. Plumber is on his way, and that’s the next hurdle before we know things.

PS – Pancake is quite upset by all of this. He’s had to relocate his pooping twice in the past 12 hours. He’s currently locked away in the Iguana room, with food, water, and his box all strategically placed. I also opened the window for him, which should amuse him enough. Poor kitteh!