William had an opportunity to earn some money last week. Our neighbors, the Dans, went to the Grand Canyon and hired William for $5.00 to feed their cat while they were gone.
They left Wednesday morning, and Leah got William out of bed the first night because he forgot about the cat. The next morning he remembered fine, but when he got back he was grousing about how they ought to be paying him $7.00 instead of $5.00 because he has to wait for the cat to eat so that he can then close the garage door. Leah told him that he didn’t have to wait, that he could just leave the door into the kitchen open and the cat could go into the house. William said he couldn’t leave that door open because the water would get into the garage. "What water!?" was the obvious question. "William, are you saying there’s water coming in from the house?" "Yes." "There’s water IN the house?" "Mom, it’s like its raining in there."
So, Leah ran over there, then ran back to tell me that their water heater had sprung a leak or SOMETHING! There was water spraying out of their kitchen pantry! I went over and looked, and yes water was shooting out of the pantry against the pantry door and flooding the kitchen.
It was very confusing at first, it looked like water was coming out of the wall, fast! The other side of the wall is in the garage, and it kinda looked like the water was coming out that direction too, like there was a pipe burst in the wall. But then I noticed a straight, narrow, pencil-thin, shaft of water shooting out from a fixture above the water heater where the tube to the air conditioner is supposed to be. It had drilled a hole through the wall (about 4 feet to the right) into the kitchen pantry and was chewing away the paint off the inside of the pantry door, with plenty of force to smack the next wall over above the washer and dryer, or your face, if you opened the door.
We shut off the spigot to the air conditioner, and Leah spent the morning setting things out in the sun and water vac’ing (borrowed from a neighbor) the floor. The Dan’s were out of cell phone range in the Grand Canyon, so they just enjoyed their vacation.
William and Mitchell let us know later that William had mentioned when he got home the night before that it sounded like someone was taking a shower in the house (meaning the water had already penetrated the wall). We really can’t account for all the water. It was about 2 inches deep in some places in the kitchen but didn’t reach the carpet in the living room. It also didn’t quite reach the gutter down the drive way. (How much went into the walls before it penetrated the inner side?) When the Dan’s got home they confirmed that there was a sink hole beneath the house.
Anyway, the Dans were very appreciative–especially of Leah’s hard work to protect their belongings (and calling "Dans" randomly out of the phone book looking for their parents). They even sent a fruit bouquet.
What I can’t get over though, is that the only thing William thought worth bringing up about the situation was that he was not getting paid enough to feed the cat.
