So at three in the morning last night, I awoke to the sound of water hissing in the bathroom and my wife yelling that the bathroom was flooding. Apparently the toilet decided to blow a gasket and start spraying water from the shutoff valve in the middle of the night. A poltergeist toilet monster had sprung forth from the bowels of my toilet.
So, in my boxer shorts and t-shirt, I trudged through the pool of water toward the spray of water erupting from the plumbing, getting soaked by the second. Fortunately the shutoff valve itself was not the problem, and I was able to successfully shut off the water before our entire bedroom, and eventually the apartment, got flooded. About twenty towels later, we had a sloppy, soaked mess of towels and toilet water spread across our bathroom floor until this morning.
Fortunately, today happens to be my birthday (what a way to wake up: to a birthday shower from the toilet monster), and my mom and step-dad were coming down from my hometown for lunch today. My step-dad, Robert, is a handyman. So five dollars and a five-minute trip to the hardware store, and he returned with a new flexible pipe and gasket. Five additional minutes, and the poltergeist toilet monster was sent back to the swirling vortex of liquid entropy whence it came.
No additional damage was caused by our toilet poltergeist, although the damage could have been much, much worse if the leak had sprung while we were not at home. The nice thing about living in an apartment complex instead of owning a home is that the complex is responsible for maintenance. If I had been a homeowner instead of a renter, and if the leak had occurred while the house was empty, I could have been looking at many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
My poltergeist toilet monster has served as a warning not to be too anxious to buy a house until I can genuinely afford it, potential damages and all. A house can be a serious financial liability, and a single plastic toilet gasket can make a shiny dream house into a monetary drain that could put you behind the financial eight ball.
So all is quiet on the western front and in our bathroom tonight. The crisis was averted, and the birthday cake was delicious. Life can be anything but dull in the Fruhling household.
