This night was just a calm night. My mother and stepfather were at the local football game and my best friend and I were home from college and hanging out for the weekend. We were sitting in the bedroom, enjoying a few frosty adult beverages, and catching up on everything that had happened during the last few weeks since we'd seen each other.
Throughout our conversation I kept hearing a strange noise. It sounded like something dripping. I finally asked my best friend if she heard it and she laughed at me. There was no dripping inside, I was just hearing things.
So we continued to talk...and I continued to hear something dripping.
As we sat there, the dripping that I was hearing in my head was getting louder. Finally, something splashed on me and I looked up...it's not common to get rained on in your bedroom. Sure enough, there was a tiny little drip of water coming from the ceiling. I called her attention to it and we both stood there staring at it for a moment.
It's not everyday that there's water falling from your ceiling. I don't think either of us was quite prepared for what we were seeing, and it took a moment for either of us to figure out what to do.
The first thing we did was move the mattress out of the bed, since the leak had started right over the bed. The second thing we did was run downstairs and grab a pot to put under the leak.
The real problem was that by the time we got back upstairs, the little leak had turned into a big leak...and there were more leaks. There were a lot more leaks. This was the first time I was ever appreciative that we had so many pots in the house.
By the time we got all the pots arranged around the bedroom, it became evident that we had a slightly bigger problem on our hands than we first realized. Now chunks of the ceiling were beginning to fall and join the water the pots were holding.
It was time to call mom.
So I called mom and explained first that we had nothing to do with what I was about to tell her. We were innocent bystanders. Then I explained the problem of the water and the ceiling chunks. She told me to go outside and clean something out that had to do with the air conditioner.
So while best friend continued to carry pots up the stairs, I ventured out into the darkness to rummage around in the bushes trying to accomplish a task that I really had no idea how to do. I didn't know anything about the particular item that I was searching for...or really how to clean it out...and it was dark and I couldn't see...and the flashlight I had must have been running on the same batteries since 1970 so I only had about an inch of visibility in front of me...and I was positive that ten thousand man-eating angry spiders were surrounding me. It was not a good situation.
Finally, having accomplished my task and having turned off the air conditioner, there was nothing more to do but wait for the parents to get home and handle the situation. We would later find out there had been a problem with the air conditioner and the ceiling would later be repaired.
For that night, however, best friend and I did all we could and while we waited for the parents we spent the night rearranging and emptying pots and staring at the ceiling. We learned a few valuable lessons from that situation. #1: If you hear dripping, don't think it's in your head. It's probably an indication that you're moments away from having your own indoor waterfall. #2: Having a lot of pots may seem like overkill when you're preparing dinner, but you should probably have enough to cover the entire surface area of your floor. Just in case you should have a growing waterfall. #3: It's no longer possible to surprise my parents with the situations which occur around best friend and I.
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