Last night started as an evening like any other. Watching American Idol and laughing at the auditions (to use Aaron’s favorite saying, “Do these people not have friends?”), surfing the web a bit, and doing some chores.
Aaron loaded the dishwasher and got it started, then got the sink full of bottle parts ready to wash. I called him in to the living room to read a post I had found. Earlier, we had discovered a slander site about my former (his current) company, and we were amusing ourselves reading all of the gossip and hate spewing from the anonymous posters. Everyone knows the company is in a death spiral. We then sat and chatted about what we read for about 10-15 minutes.
Aaron then walked back into the kitchen, and suddenly I heard, “Shit!”
I asked what was wrong, and he only answered with, “I’m a moron, that’s what’s wrong!”
I walked in to find our kitchen flooded. At first I thought it might be from the dishwasher malfunctioning. Then I saw the sink. “I left the water running and forgot to turn it off,” Aaron explained. The kitchen sink was full, and the water was running off onto the counters and the floor. On one side, the water was running off into the trash can (useful, that), and on the other, the water was going to the floor and inching its way towards the living room carpet.
At first, I thought: eh, not a big deal. It’s a little water on the counters, and some pooled on the floor. Aaron was really upset, but I found the entire thing funny, because I didn’t think it was anything to get upset over. I didn’t realize just how much water could come out of a faucet in 15 minutes.
I gathered up a few towels, handed one to Aaron, and began putting them on the floor. But those few towels were no match for the water. Each towel would soak up the water until full, but there was still water where the towel had been.
Aaron ran upstairs and grabbed all of our bathroom towels and brought them back down. We each took one side of the sink, cleared everything off, and began mopping up more water from the counters. It was everywhere, and it was clearly going to require every last towel in the house.
Once my side of the counter was dry, I started to dry the floor under it, but noticed water kept dripping from the edge of a drawer next to the sink. “How is there still water dripping? The counter is dry.”
I got my answer when I pulled open the drawer and was splashed by a wave of water. The entire drawer was filled with water. I looked at Aaron, with a large wet spot on my shirt, and said, “I think there may be more water.” I grabbed a cup and started bailing the drawer out quickly. Once the water level was lower, we pulled the drawer out, dumped the contents into the sink, and propped it up to dry.
Then I looked in the cabinet below the drawer. “Aw, hell. There’s more water in here!” Everything was emptied from the cabinet, and it was also dried out.
After a half hour of soaking up and mopping up water, the flood was contained and the kitchen started to dry out.
Luckily, not much was lost to the flood. Several boxes were soaked, but their contents inside were protected by foil or plastic wrapping. I once again gave praise to The Container Store for their airtight plastic kitchen containers, which protected the sugar, flour, and tea bags.
The cookbooks, however, did not fare as well. I’m sorry Betty Crocker and A Man, A Plan, and A Can, but you were not strong enough to face the amount of water that hit you. The bottom halves of your pages are now yellowish and wavy. I tried to dry you out, and although you are still readable, you will never be the same.
Of course, it’s not much of a loss, I guess, since we never even cracked open those books. Good thing we’re not cooks!
I hate to say it…but you need those fans to dry out the cabniets and stuff…mold.
Wow. Sorry that happened:( I did that once with my sink but it wasn’t nearly as bad!
BUGGER..gotta hate that. I must admit I couldn’t help but laugh at the images going on in my head as I was reading about it though!
That sounds like a great story-line for a sit-com. Especially the part where your husband said he was a moron! But aside from that hope everything got dried out ok. I’m no cook either. When my husband and I got married I told him I was good in only one room and it wasn’t the kitchen! One thing though dont be shocked at your water bill. Good luck.
We had a similar problem in the bathroom once. Someone gave the 3yr old a bucket to play with in the bath tub and left her to play. It took a industrial sized mop to clean up that mess.
Sorry about the flood! I did the same thing in our laundry room–twice!
Mary
I’ve been thru this one. A Shop Vac is indispensable for times like these.
Oh! I’m so sorry. I hope you took pictures…what a great memory!
We had a similar problem — fortunately, we own a carpet steam cleaner, so we were able to pull up most of the water right away. (Otherwise, it was still early enough in the evening that we could have rented a RugDoctor machine from the grocer.)
Must have been about 10-15 gallons!
The water seeped across the kitchen wall to the master bedroom on the other side.
A friend suggested pulling up the carpet off the tack-strips to speed up drying the carpet pad underneath — that was a good call.
OMG I just googled LEFT THE SINK RUNNING FLOOD and found your blog! Guess what, I was watching American Idol tonight and did the exact same thing!!! I just finished mopping up my entire apartment plus all the way down the hallway, I’m still hoping I didn’t flood anyone else’s unit, luckily I haven’t heard any of the neighbors screaming and cursing. Right now I’m doing the wash, I had used every single towel, sheet and sweatshirt to sop up the LAKE! I guess someday I’ll laugh about this, it does make me feel better to discover I’m not the only one 🙂
Just happened to me—my brother did me a favor—not—and left my dog out while on vacation—got home 16 hours later—he left faucet on!! Flood in kitchen and dining—-rented a rug doctor —that helped—but 2 weeks later I pulled up carpet—i had fans on it for 2 weeks—the carpet was dry—but guess what–padding is wet—time for a new floor!!!
I just did this tonight! I feel asleep while the water was running in the sink for 4 hours! I know I’ll definitely laugh about this one day 🙂 as I couldn’t help but laugh at your description of your husband and yourself. I also thought I was finished drying until I opened a drawer and it was full of water. I do believe I have the cleanest kitchen on our street now.