Heroic Mama

I know, I can hear you right now. I am going to spoil you. Two posts in a day. But as I pondered today's topic over my bowl of grits (imported gift, in case you are wondering), I laughed out loud. I didn't want to wait on this one.

Last night around 3am, I heard my firstborn cough. And she coughed. And she coughed. And she coughed. I got up and gave her a suppressant so she could make it until morning and not be tired for school. Then I had one of those "I'm all awake now feelings" so I wrote the Science Fair blog. Finally, around 5am, I headed back to bed. Just as I had gotten back into my deep sleep, I heard this sound that went like this...."FWASHHHHHHH." (Just imagine what a front loader washing machine might sound like with the door open.) And what did I assume it was? I assumed it might be Ross blowing his nose. Seriously. That is what I thought. Then it occurred to me that if that were Ross blowing his nose, he might not have a nose left at that point.

I threw back the covers and dashed into the hall, quickly realizing there was water saturating the bottoms of my pajama pants. Still in my stupor, I began to search for the source. The standing water was in our Turkish toilet, also known as a Squatty Potty. Before you start to get a mental picture of that, I will tell you that we converted our Turkish toilet into a laundry room by stacking our washer and dryer on top of the squatting zone. I will squat on a roadtrip, not in my own home. Very ingenious, and very Western of us, huh? Anyway, back to the drama. I realized that I could not find the source of the gushing before it consumed our home, so what did I do? I yanked up my pajama top sleeve, and threw back the water main bar. I shut off all the water in the entire house. I know, you are speechless. How did I know where it was? How did I know what direction in which to pull it? How did I think that quickly in a nighttime stupor? But I did, folks. I am just being honest with you. It was quite heroic.

My adorable Scottish clansman was right behind me. He was speechless. I think he was thinking what a very, very smart move he made back in November of 1996. He then insisted on mopping up the water, while I trotted back to bed, confident in my ability to throw a water main bar.

Of course, it's not fixed yet. We had to brush our teeth with our water bottles this morning. He even washed his hair with a water bottle (thankfully, I gave him a buzz not too long ago). The good news is that it will only cost about $15 to fix this problem. That is when you don't mind living in a country with squatty potties.