Wednesday, March 28, 2007

My thumb hurts

I sliced it open in a bizarre plumbing accident. It won't stop bleeding. It's not doing a lawn sprinkler/arterial bloodbath thing, but it won't stop. Did I mention that it hurts?
I get up in the middle of the night and here water running, more like BLASTING from somewhere. I go downstairs and see the kitchen sink going all out. It's one of those one handled faucets that you pull up/push down and turn for hot or cold. It won't push down. Won't budge a phuc. I wiggle it and lean on it, get it down to a drizzle finally. No prob, I've seen this before. It's some kind of washer or rubber gasket thingy. I"ll turn the water off under the sink and get to it tomorrow. Cold turns off, but the hot knob is stripped like a Playmate on New Years Eve.

So...

I get up to turn the water off in the basement and set right into a soaking wet part of the carpet. How I stepped over it when I came in I have no idea, but one SQUISH later and I can tell this is a bigger problem than I thought.

Phuc.

I go down to the basement and I'm suddenly in a WWII sub-marine movie! Water is dripping or downright pouring from where the main pipe is right under the kitchen sink. All that was missing was a dim red light, that "arrroooo-gah arrroooo-gah!" sound and some guy yelling in german for me to brace for emergency surface!
Water everywhere, big puddle, rug soaked. Squish squish squish, reach up and turn off the main water lines. As I'm turning one off I can hear the water blasting again upstairs!

Fuck.

I get back up there and decide to try one more time to get the hot water line shut off under the sink. I get a rubber band to help get a grip on the stripped knob thingy, get the wrench on there and as I"m going to torque the damn thing my arm bumps the drain pipe. The whole thing pops loose like it was never attached!

FUCK!

I push it back up and on to the bottom of the sink and that's when I see why there's water everywhere. The upswing part of the elbow/U- part of the pipe has simply disintegrated. All this time the water was blasting, and I don't know how long it was, it's been pouring out the bottom of the sink like a waterfall.

So.......

Now, I"m thinkin....ok, I've got some pvc pipe crap laying around, maybe I can rig a temp patch job McGuyver type thing to hold it for the night and tomorrow til I get the manager of the complex over to fix it. I barely get ahold of the pipe to see if I can push it up a bit (remember,it popped loose from the bottom of the sink) and it crumbles like candy glass and slices a chunk out of my thumb and stabs part of my hand.
Great...so NOW, I'm thinkin that I'm gonna have to get dressed (I've been in my boxers this whole time) and go to the emergency room to get my thumb stitched up. Lovely, bright red blood is streaming down my hand. I should've taken a pic, it was very artsy. If I put it up in B&W it'd be a highly downloaded pic amongst Goth kids 15-19. Hand held out, palm full of blood...a thin little stream of it running down my wrist and forearm. Dammit, I should've taken a picture or maybe YouTubed this whole thing. Meh, maybe next bullshit crises.

No sleep last night. I kept waking up thinking I was hearing water running even though I turned it off.

Did I mention that the kitchen is a mess? I have to clean it up, without water, and THEN get this shit fixed.

My thumb hurts. It's slowed, but won't stop bleeding.

The worst part of all of this, is that when I did get a little sleep, Patty Smith showed up in my dream and sang "Because the night". What the hell does THAT mean?

My thumb hurts.

6 comments:

jeopardygirl said...

Doesn't sound bizarre to me, sounds like really shitty old plumbing that finally broke down. Sorry your thumb had to get sliced open, though

Anonymous said...

plumbing sucks. i'm with diane keaton in the movie baby boom. i just want to turn the faucet on and have water. i don't need to know where it's coming from.

Wendy said...

was it real pipe, like metal and rusty? Is that what you said? You should go get a tetnus shot then your arm will hurt too. Use those butterfly dealies or liquid bandage if you don't want stiches. Great visual on the leaking subamarine thing, I can totally see the disaster in my head.

There is nothing worse than a plumbing catastrophe...NOTHING. Having pulled a toilet on July 4th with a disentegrated o ring and no plumber to be found and having to squat in my backyard while a cop spot lighted me...NOTHING worse than a plumbing disaster.

Robyn said...

You are nicer than I am. I'm afraid I would have called the manager right away to have it fixed. Well, that's mostly because I wouldn't have the first clue how to fix it. I might pull the necessary brain cells together to shut the water off, but you never know.

Did you see that episode of the X-files where Mulder's water bed springs a leak and soaks through to the apartment downstairs, and he has to go to the bank to cash his paycheck and he gets exploded by Ed from Northern Exposure and then the day starts all over again?

ramblin' girl said...

at least you have a manager to fix it... when my pipe broke under my sink, and my basement turned into a scene from a submarine movie, it was all me (with a little help from my sister and her then boyfriend after a frantic 1 am call)

if you need info on good water damage restoration companies for your manager, you know where to find me.

Anonymous said...

At least it's a rental... would suck to be responsible for the fixing and all!

And... egad - this weird shit does seem to happen to you.