Drip - drip - drip

That's the sound that greeted me when I got home the other night. And it's just not that good a sound to have coming from the pantry. So I turned on the pantry light to investigate and found water dripping off of the light fixture and (thank you, Lord!) into the recycle bin.

Listening carefully I could hear the water dripping out "Good. bye. tax. refund" in Morse code. And I turned off the pantry light, got really depressed, and left a phone message for David. "Uhmm, hi Sweetie, it's Leta. Can you give me a call when you get in?"

You see, my condo has polybutlyene pipes, also known as quest. There was a big lawsuit several years ago and a class action settlement because these stupid pipes are, apparently, only slightly better than cardboard tubing in terms of keeping water where you want it to be. I was very much afraid that I was seeing the result of a (or several) pin-hole leaks in my pipes. Of course, the benefit to living on the ground floor is that only my possessions are in danger. I won't have to buy someone below me new carpets, as John on the 3rd floor got to do a few years ago for Kathleen's predecessor.

I trotted upstairs and asked Kathleen if she was in the middle of a flooding crisis and, nope, there was no standing water at her place. Or dripping water, either. I went back downstairs.

Then I got smart. My recently acquired friend, Bill, is (ta da!!) an actual, I-get-paid-to-do-this, I-know-what-I-am-talking-about plumber. So I called him. And because the breaks can't go against me 100% of the time, he was actually home. And he gave me very good advice.

1. Find something sharp (I own an awl) and poke a couple of holes in the ceiling to give the water somewhere to go.
2. The water shut-off for the apartment is right next to the water meter. Use it.
3. Get a plumber - who is not opening a show in 10 days - out to fix it ASAP.

So I poked 4 holes in the ceiling and water dripped out of three of them. At a rate of about 1 drop every three seconds from one hole and 1 drop every 7 seconds from the other two. My exciting new hobby became staring at the water and timing the drops.

I woke up around 2:00 am and emptied an inch or so of water out of the trash can I put under the holes. By 8:00 am there was another couple of inches. Not a huge amount of water. I went to work and then to dinner with Maureen, Julie, Deb, and Clive and then to rehearsal, and then to Clive's hotel (to drop him off! Geez!) and then home, all the while thinking "please, ceiling, don't have collapsed, please, ceiling, don't have collapsed, please, ceiling...." I walked in the front door about 15 hours after having left for the day and there was about three inches of water in the trashcan and the ceiling was still overhead. Yay!!!*

Bill and I exchanged a millionty** e-mails today discussing the plumbing situation, most of which made me feel better. Like most people who only know the bare minimum about how plumbing works, I was fearing the worst. Like repair bills only slightly smaller than my net worth.

Around 3:00 I called My Plumber and the dispatcher said that they could send someone over right away. So I fled my office*** and met Van the Plumber. Van cut a nice, big hole in the ceiling and told me that the water is coming from Kathleen's apartment. He concurred with all the advice that Bill had given me, charged me only for the service call ($59.50) and not for clearing out the no-longer-dry-wall and insulation, admired my piano, and left. Bill im-ed me a couple more pieces of good advice, and - when she got home - I went upstairs and ruined Kathleen's day.

So there is still dripping water, but now it just sounds kind of monotonous rather than portentous. And there's a 6"x18" hole in the ceiling, but it's the pantry ceiling so no big deal. Anyone wishing to practice their drywall patching technique is welcome to stop on by and give it a shot.

And, Bill, when we come to see Moby Dick Rehearsed, I promise to sit in the back row and I owe you a drink.