I Almost Expect This Now

Life has been a bit on the busy side lately. The tax year is finally over, the franchise had their big end-of-year office party, I've been working on getting projects finished up around here, and Thursday night, the bathroom faucet exploded.

At this point, I've almost come to expect things like this to happen around here. Victor had come over for dinner (I was trading a home-cooked dinner for him tapping out a broken bolt on my stove.) Dinner was over, Giselle was in her room, Victor and I were talking at the dining table, and Arabella was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth.

Suddenly, I could hear the water running, like Arabella had just turned the water on full blast. About then, she came tearing around the corner of the dining room doorway. "The faucet exploded!" she cried.

Victor ran for the bathroom and Giselle and I ran for the main shut-off in the basement. By the time I got into the basement, water from the bathroom was pouring through the subflooring and onto the basement floor. I could hear Victor and Arabella struggling with the sink upstairs as I turned the valve shut.

By the time I got back upstairs, the bathroom was a total disaster. Water dripped from the ceiling. Water pooled on the floor. Water ran down the pictures on the walls. Giselle took a critical look at the mess, picked up a towel to start mopping the water up with, and addressing no one in particular, said, "Well, that's one way to get the bathroom clean, but I wouldn't recommend it!"

We mopped up, while Victor attempted to figure out what had happened to the faucet. Apparently the screw ring that holds the valve in place had come loose, and when Arabella turned on the hot water, the whole hot-water-side handle assembly had shot off the sink from the pressure of the water. We managed to find all the parts except for the small spring that seats at the very bottom of the valve. For that, I had to do an emergency run to Lowe's to buy a replacement.

For the record, never in my 44 years have I had a faucet explode like that. I didn't even know it was possible, outside of TV sit-coms. But after dealing fried modems, I suppose an exploding bath faucet really isn't that big of a deal.