Oh, Poo.

Regrettably, I mean this quite literally.

And, if one more person tells me that this crap (again, literally) only happens to ME, I’m gonna lose it all over someone, so consider yourself aptly warned.

It all started innocently enough…but doesn’t it always??

The heaviest thing on the day’s agenda was two pending interviews…I’d hoped to get some chores out of the way and after exploring the complexities of “Winterizing one’s home in the Hudson Valley”, I’d hoped to find time to tackle the maze that is my garage.

If I only knew. (Said with a heavy Jewish…((or Long Island…take your pick))-Mother accent for added emphasis)

At approximately 10am (for the official record), I entered the laundry room and deposited a typically massive amount of dirty items into the washer. After processing said items, I swung by Taylor’s (age 16) bath to perform my customary “cracking of the window”…as he’s, well, 16…and has his own bath.

You do the math.

Evidently, some time elapsed (possibly a self-induced coma…we shall never be sure, but I believe I became distracted by the sheer grossness of the state of said bath) and somehow the washer had entered its rinse cycle.

I say this because it’s crucial to the telling of this tale.

Trust me…you’ll see.

I was deep in the process of swiffering the floor (the modern-day equivalent to mopping) when I heard a strange sound. It started as kind of a “whoooooosh” and it gradually built in intensity to more of a “whooooosh/guuuurrgggllle” and the next thing I know, I’m watching a mini-version of Mt. Saint Helen's erupting in Taylor’s shower…only, instead of spewing hot molten lava, it’s soapy laundry-detergent water....and it's quickly overflowing onto the floor of the bath.

“What the hell…..???”

What is it with ME and WATER?!?

I’ve no clue as to what’s happening….except that soapy water is basically everywhere….and I’ve nothing with which to absorb it…(actually, tampons came to mind for about half a second there) as I do not own a mop…opting for the modern-day-Swiffer instead. I basically just stood there…in a state of soapy-water-induced-shock…until the water started not only bubbling in the commode itself, but coming out of the base of it.

You know I'm not kidding here.

THAT’S when I came out of it. With expletives sailing, I ran upstairs for towels (as I’d no other idea of how I’d sop up the water) and on the way back downstairs, I thought to hit the button to temporarily halt the washer. When I re-entered Tay’s bath, the backup was definitely slowing…although, what this meant was totally beyond me.

By the time I’d finished sopping up the water, I’d dialed the number for the owner of this humble abode (for, YAY….it’s not MY HOUSE…remember??) and I’d informed him (Bob) that the downstairs portion of his house was a piece of crap.

What I actually said was “Hey Bob! Hope you enjoyed that vacation, ‘cause we’ve got a problem here! It seems that your downstairs pipes are all a big mish-moshed-mess and I’ve got soapy washer water coming out of every lower-level-plumbing-orafice you’ve got! How would you like me to handle this?”

“Huh.” Says Bob. “Interesting conundrum. Does the same thing happen when you run the water upstairs?”

(He may not have actually said “conundrum”, but Connor used it correctly in a sentence the other day and now it's my new favorite word.)

I said “I don’t know…shall we find out?”

He said “Oh, yes! Let’s!” (or something to this effect.)

For the remainder of this conundrum, stay tuned. And although you may want to hate me for drawing this out, you should know by now that I’d milk it for all its worth.

It’s just who I am...