How Do YOU Spell Relief?

This weekend several commercial slogans from my childhood kept resounding in my mind. Mostly, the one for Rolaids, “How do you spell relief” and the one for Calgon bubble bath where the frazzled lady exclaims, “Calgon, take me away!”

“Why is that?” you ask. Well, let me tell you. Friday morning I heard a water trickling noise coming from the heater closet at the end of our hallway near Lizzie’s room. When I went to go check on it, the flooring that the unit sits on was completely soaked. I quickly called our landlord who made a few phone calls until she was able to find someone to come out to take a look at it. However, I had to leave to go pick up David from the airport. This was the third week so far this summer that he has been gone, and every time he left, some big crisis happens. Week 1, I broke my toe, week 2, Lizzie breaks her leg, and now week 3, our A/C starts to die and leaks water.

“No problem,” I tell myself, “our landlord’s wife will meet the A/C guy at our house while I’m gone to the airport, and he’ll fix the leak. We’ll blow a fan in the closet until it’s dry, and boom! Problem solved.”

Ha! Ha! Ha! Apparently, the emergency A/C guy was a quack trying to rip desperate customers off. An honest and dependable A/C repairman couldn’t come until the next afternoon. In the meantime, water is starting to come out of the unit in the hall and getting the carpeting wet. By Saturday morning the carpeting around the closet was so wet that it would come up between my toes when I stepped on it. And to top it all off, we discovered that the majority of the water was not in front of the heater closet, but has been pouring out the back into Lizzie’s closet where we store all of her medical equipment!

David had an event with the students most of the day on Saturday, so I was on my own to empty Lizzie’s closet and start trying to soak up the water with towels. It was a completely futile effort. I called for back up. “Mom, Dad, I need HELP!”
They came to my rescue. Our landlord also came on Saturday night to help with the efforts.

Anyway, we had to move Lizzie into Becca’s room, this is no small undertaking. And Becca has been sleeping in Lizzie’s room with the fans blowing on the now bare concrete floor of Lizzie’s closet in an attempt to prevent mold from growing.

We are supposed to get a new A/C installed today . . . we hope.

“Calgon, take me away!”