How NOT to spend a Saturday

Matt's brother, Brendon, spent a couple nights with us this week. He and Matt got up and went to the movies today at 11am to see Terminator. I wasn't invited. :) So, I was at home, with the dogs, having a lazy Saturday morning. I took a shower, got some cleaning done, had a little internet time.... When I went downstairs, I stepped off the stairs into WATER. I freaked for a second, as anyone would when expecting dry floor, and then started trying to figure out where it came from.

Long story short, it had come from the downstairs bathroom. Daisy's kennel is in the hallway that leads to the bathroom, so we keep the door closed and her bed sits against the door. The bathroom had flooded, but because her dog bed was in front of the door it had kept most of it in. I assumed whoever used the bathroom this morning hadn't realized the toilet overflowed. So, I started moving all of her stuff out of the way so I could clean up the water. I got out my nifty little wet-vac and started cleaning up the water. I did NOT mess with the toilet. I only looked at it to see that it was completely empty.

As I'm vacuuming the water up, the toilet starts to overflow again. Out of nowhere. Now there's twice as much water. I call Matt (apparently making him miss the last scene of the movie...) to find out how to turn off the water to the toilet. I wade into the BROWN water to turn it off.....and start vacuuming again. Then, with the water off, it starts overflowing again. I'm at my wits end at this point because the water is coming out faster than I can clean it up. I call Matt again. He tells me to do things like plunge it, or take the lid off and check something....I try to explain the house is flooding. He says he's on his way to "save the day." I start putting towels down to keep it from wetting the entire house.

Matt comes home with his brand new shoes on and heads to the bathroom. I told him he probably didn't want to go in there in those shoes. He clearly did NOT get the gravity of the situation. There was INCHES of brown water standing in there. He changes shoes. He plunges....nothing. He gets tools from Lowes....nothing. I vacuum up literally tens of gallons of water. He calls plumber.

The plumber arrives with some nifty tools to assess the situation. He finds clog....46 feet into the pipe. He clears the clog and sends a camera (one of the nifty tools) down the pipe to take a look around. His diagnosis? 46 feet into the pipe, the adjoining pipe doesn't line up properly. The solution? Dig it up, reset it. The cost? $1700. Yes, seventeen HUNDRED dollars.

Happy Memorial Day.

We did not let this little adventure ruin our plans for the day though. It just delayed them by five hours. The original plan for the day was to trade in the bimmer and get a new car! We got to the dealership one hour before they closed and I got my new car.

I'll post pics soon! (of the car....not the brown water)