posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
syncope at 06:13pm on 19/04/2011
syncope at 06:13pm on 19/04/2011Gather 'round to hear the exciting adventure of my most recent First World problems!
For those of who live elsewhere, in the middle bit of America we're in the middle of Spring, which due to climate change means The Yearly Apocalypse Everyone Still Acts Shocked About. I didn't sleep last night because we had a storm that I would say was on par with a bad tropical storm/weak hurricane.
Lightning and thunder don't bother me. So much so that when I was younger it never really occurred to people (including me) that when a thunderstorm rolled in that it was time to get out of an aluminum boat. What? Oh, please, better chance to get bitten by a snake than struck by lightning! (Which I think is probably accurate.) As long as you didn't stand under a tree, you were golden being out in massive lightning. Keep in mind that Florida is the lightning capital of the world (or so we were told) and I actually know people who have been hit by lightning. People, not person. Yeah, natural selection isn't working well in Florida.
Last night it was thundering and lightning so bad RIGHT OVER MY HOUSE that I got out of bed to check out where the strikes were landing. In the field/woods behind my house. There's a lightning rod back there for reasons involving gas lines. Don't worry about it, I haven't blown up yet.
It wasn't even the lightning that was the problem, it was a the thunder. Jeez. Literal glass rattling thunder for THREE HOURS. How is that normal? It is not. I don't know where you grew up, by I learned to count beats between lightning and thunder to know how close a storm was. THERE WERE NO BEATS BETWEEN. This shit just sat on top of my house like Sad Bear (I don't remember if that's his real name). On and on and on.
I finally dozed off around 5 am. CUE TORNADO SIRENS!
What?
Of course this sets the dogs off.
I realize I hadn't checked the sump pump (this still never occurs to me). Everything was fine, but I still laid in bed with this sense of foreboding.
When I finally gave up and just got up for good, there was a small patch of water in the basement. By 1p I was standing in three inches of water shopvacing like a mofo, the sump pump totally dead.
CUE MY FAMILY.
Listen, I bitch about these people all the time (for damned good reason). I will say this: there's never a question when I call and am like "I hit a tourist and need to do something fast!" that they won't show up with the chainsaws and quicklime.
On my own, I sucked up at least 150 gallons of water, and we were trading off between two vacuums. Because the flood killed every single outlet in the basement and we were having to trade off with an industrial extension cord threaded up the stairs.
150 gallons 12 gallons at a time walked up the stairs to dump in the yard because the sump pump took several hours to replace. !!! Time to move to the desert!
I kind of feel bad for thinking my cousin's redneck husband was a meth addict criminal now as he swapped out the sump pump and carted water all day for a bottle of Jagr. I AM SO NOT KIDDING. He's going to fix the electrical problem, too. I guess I can pay him for that with nana puddin'.
I am sorry, y'all, my plans today were to finish my stupid A/E fic and maybe make some custard if I could scrape together enough of a shit to manage. Instead I feel like a lasershark ready to laser people to death.
It's not even May.
For those of who live elsewhere, in the middle bit of America we're in the middle of Spring, which due to climate change means The Yearly Apocalypse Everyone Still Acts Shocked About. I didn't sleep last night because we had a storm that I would say was on par with a bad tropical storm/weak hurricane.
Lightning and thunder don't bother me. So much so that when I was younger it never really occurred to people (including me) that when a thunderstorm rolled in that it was time to get out of an aluminum boat. What? Oh, please, better chance to get bitten by a snake than struck by lightning! (Which I think is probably accurate.) As long as you didn't stand under a tree, you were golden being out in massive lightning. Keep in mind that Florida is the lightning capital of the world (or so we were told) and I actually know people who have been hit by lightning. People, not person. Yeah, natural selection isn't working well in Florida.
Last night it was thundering and lightning so bad RIGHT OVER MY HOUSE that I got out of bed to check out where the strikes were landing. In the field/woods behind my house. There's a lightning rod back there for reasons involving gas lines. Don't worry about it, I haven't blown up yet.
It wasn't even the lightning that was the problem, it was a the thunder. Jeez. Literal glass rattling thunder for THREE HOURS. How is that normal? It is not. I don't know where you grew up, by I learned to count beats between lightning and thunder to know how close a storm was. THERE WERE NO BEATS BETWEEN. This shit just sat on top of my house like Sad Bear (I don't remember if that's his real name). On and on and on.
I finally dozed off around 5 am. CUE TORNADO SIRENS!
What?
Of course this sets the dogs off.
I realize I hadn't checked the sump pump (this still never occurs to me). Everything was fine, but I still laid in bed with this sense of foreboding.
When I finally gave up and just got up for good, there was a small patch of water in the basement. By 1p I was standing in three inches of water shopvacing like a mofo, the sump pump totally dead.
CUE MY FAMILY.
Listen, I bitch about these people all the time (for damned good reason). I will say this: there's never a question when I call and am like "I hit a tourist and need to do something fast!" that they won't show up with the chainsaws and quicklime.
On my own, I sucked up at least 150 gallons of water, and we were trading off between two vacuums. Because the flood killed every single outlet in the basement and we were having to trade off with an industrial extension cord threaded up the stairs.
150 gallons 12 gallons at a time walked up the stairs to dump in the yard because the sump pump took several hours to replace. !!! Time to move to the desert!
I kind of feel bad for thinking my cousin's redneck husband was a meth addict criminal now as he swapped out the sump pump and carted water all day for a bottle of Jagr. I AM SO NOT KIDDING. He's going to fix the electrical problem, too. I guess I can pay him for that with nana puddin'.
I am sorry, y'all, my plans today were to finish my stupid A/E fic and maybe make some custard if I could scrape together enough of a shit to manage. Instead I feel like a lasershark ready to laser people to death.
It's not even May.
There are 33 comments on this entry. (Reply.)