Florida Re-entry

Like the birds, Charley and I "migrate" twice a year. When the weather turns cold and raw in Massachusetts, we head to Florida. We do the reverse in May when the heat and humidity become suffocating in Florida.

After driving 1500 miles south this October, we unpacked the car,
raised the electric storm shutters, put sheets on our bed, and tumbled to sleep within minutes. Around 1 a.m. I got up to use the bathroom, rousing myself from dreams of lying on the beach, and shuffled with one open eye toward the nightlight. My other eye flew open when I heard a loud hissing noise. "Please, God, not a snake!" was my first thought. I turned on a light and not seeing anything coiled near my feet, headed toward the kitchen.

I didn't get to the kitchen. Squish, squish, squish. My feet hit water across the stone floor. From under the bar a fountain was spurting liquid sunshine down the hall. "Charley! Get up!" I yelled, folding to my knees. A split water hose made a direct hit and doused my face and hair in a second.

"Are you sick?" Charley said, stumbling out of the bedroom.

"Look!" I said, holding my thumb over the split in the hose. "Turn off the faucet under there! I'll get a bucket and towels." I handed him the hose so he could move his thumb into position.

  "The thing is rusted," he yelled, twisting his other arm into the back of the cabinet. "Get some WD40!" A new purple bruise spread across his forearm, as he wedged his football body inside the 2'x4' cabinet, while
water gushed past his thumb.

I ran to grab the WD40, towels, and a bucket, and headed back to my dripping husband who was sitting in water and looked like he'd peed in his pj's. Slowly, slowly, the metal knob began turning. Slowly, slowly, the water began to drip and then stopped. We heard  furniture scraping in the condo below us. "I hope this didn't seep into their apartment!" I said. That was when our phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Carey, this is the security guard. Mrs. Rickover in the apartment below you reported water coming through her light fixtures in the ceiling."

"Yes, we've had a hose split in the bar area, but we've turned off the water."

"I'll be right there."

The damage was minimal for both of us, thankfully, but our neighbors called ServPro, to be sure. A plumber came for us the next day and the dripping from the Rickovers' light fixtures stopped without mildew. Their ceiling was intact and the light fixtures functioned. We both ran fans that week, called our insurance companies, and sent carpets out for cleaning. Good thing I'd had to make a pit stop (though I didn't make it back there for quite a while)!

But that was only the beginning...

During the course of the next week we discovered an ice block in the refrigerator ice maker; the internet nonfunctional; the cable out of commission for two televisions; the printer full of a blob of black ink (needed a new printer); sugar ants in the kitchen; and to top it off...I developed an eye infection!

The following week a cavity turned into a root canal.

At least we had sunshine and temperatures in the eighties!