Alone in the Dark.

So there I was, on my hands and knees, in the dark, drenched in sweat...

You know it's pretty lazy writing when a person relies so heavily on double entendres to try and hold interest...
And for my next post: "How to tell when someone is just phoning it in..." Also: "Ellipses... how much is too much?"

Anyway, remember when Troy inadvertently created a geyser in the front yard? Well, not to be outdone, I too caused a plumbing catastrophe. Except this time it was under the house.

The official story is that I was weeding around the foundation and accidentally bumped against an old corroded water faucet jutting out from the side of the house.

A butterfly could probably land on this thing and it would shatter.
Seriously rusty relic.

Because in no way would I be so foolishly callous as to knock against an old seized up faucet knob with a sledgehammer just to satisfy my childlike "wonder-what-would-happen/maybe-it-still-works" curiosity.

Dogbyte

Well, Four Year Old Me, even though it was definitely a legitimate accident, the answers to your questions are: "a burst pipe" and "yes, but not in the way that you hoped".

The immediate sound of water gushing underneath the crawl space filled me with instant regret concern.

Also panic.

What have I done?!

Without going into too much boring detail, the water was turned off, and we went under the house to assess the damage.

Sure is dark under there...

Of course this involved me crawling through three of my biggest fears: the dark, confined spaces, and the certainty that I'm going to run across a dead body.

I mean, good lord, it's a crawl space. Not only are you in a vulnerable position, (on your knees in the dark), but nothing good has ever come out of crawl spaces.

Lost artifacts? Buried treasure? Hell no. Try creepy reminders of your own mortality.

Now available in both skeletal and beef jerky varieties.

People find the bodies of rats and dead hookers in crawl spaces all the damn time.
And in case you didn't feel like clicking, let me just assure you that every single one of those links goes to something horrible.

So just to recap, it's dark, so there's no telling what you're shuffling through, and there's also that minor detail that you're directly underneath 20 tons of house should a freak earthquake decide to strike.

Or a tornado.
You know, whatever.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of crawl spaces.

But, I did feel bad about causing the pipe to break. So, as penance, I volunteered to stay underneath the house and begin the slow process of digging out the pipe.

Best. Saturday. Ever.

The mercury hovered around a balmy ninety degrees as I sweated out the human equivalent of the Three Gorges Dam.

"Sexy and I know it."

To stay calm, I pretended it was a prison break. Which was a relatively easy thing to imagine, as I scraped through the dirt and cinder block with nothing but my hands and a cheap trowel. A mini flashlight in my teeth lit the way.

You're an inspiration, Andy Dufresne.

The pipe, by the way, was completely corroded. It was a miracle that it hadn't started leaking before now. Apparently concrete constantly secretes moisture, which is no good when in direct contact with galvanized pipe, and causes it to deteriorate fairly quickly.
So yeah, tuck that information nugget up under your hat.

Anyway, once we had dug out underneath the wall, we were finally able to find a joiner and capped the damn thing off.

Again, thank god Troy knows what he's doing.

It was also quite possibly the filthiest I have ever been in my life. Found a dead spider, cobwebs, and enough small twigs in my hair to build a sizable birds nest.

Here's to exciting holiday weekends!