The Flood

Friday was a rainy, rainy day. We had heavy rain for three straight hours. After the first hour, I waddled down to the basement to do some laundry. At the foot of the stairs I noticed a small stream of water rolling across the floor. Luckily, I had a handful of dirty towels in my hand. I threw one down and sopped up the water, then I  pulled up the corner of Brett's (our basement dweller) rug that had gotten slightly wet. I was a little upset because our basement had been dry for the most part. We live at the top of a huge hill and Adam did some extra things to the basement when we remodeled it in hopes to keep it completely dry. This was the second time this summer that water got in.

I thought the problem was fixed and was just about to go back to my laundry, when out of the corner of my eye I saw it. A large amount of water rushing out from under Brett's dressers. "What the heck?!" I yelled, as I threw all the towels in my hand on top of the water, in hopes to stop it from touching any of Brett's belongings on the floor.

I knew I had to move the furniture to find the source of the problem, not an easy task for my protruding belly, though you would think a whale would feel quite at home at sea. When I moved the furniture, I discovered more water. It was a pool about an inch deep and 6ft long. It poured in from under the door of the "spider room". I stood there for a minute like a deer in the headlights. The dozen towels I had brought down were now completely soaked and weren't helping at all. I ran to the laundry room and pulled all the clean towels out of the dryer. I threw the towels down then went up to get a mop and bucket.

With the mop, I filled buckets. When the towels were once again soaked, I ran upstairs to get the rest of the towels we owned. As I waddled-ran past the kids in the living room, one of them asked, "What's going on?"

"There's a flood in the basement!" I yelled, trying not to pee my pants from the fast pace at which I was moving.

To my surprise, my kids all screamed, "YEAH!" as they made a beeline for the basement.

"Weird," I thought as I grabbed the towels, "they better not be playing in the water."

When I got to the basement stairs, I saw my boys standing there looking confused. "Where's the flood?" Jagger asked.

"What do you mean? It's all over the floor," I said as I pointed to the obvious pool of water in the basement.

"Ohhh," they all whined as they sadly made their way back upstairs.

As I continued to clean, I wondered what caused my kids odd behavior. Then it hit me.

Here, I'm asking you not to judge me. I allow all my older boys to play the video game Halo. Which is rated M. This also includes Jude, who just turned 5 last week. I know, bad parenting, but I allow this because my boys actually play together and have a good time. Anyway, the game is nothing more than killing aliens, and when there is a massive onslaught it's called a flood.

Lesson 129: you tell your kids there's a flood in the basement, and they think it's a plague of aliens that they need to take care of = white trash

So, the flood in the basement turned out to be a bummer for everyone.