One Small Miscalculation: Whatever Can Go Wrong

I'm home from work today, frogging this project. I went to Paris two years ago between jobs--my first-ever trip to France, and my first-ever European trip alone. It was a wonderful trip, and I did some truly inspired shopping. I skipped the lines at the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower in favor of haunting the small (and large) shops for which Paris is justly famous, and exploring far and wide by the Metro. I bought this chart, by Compagnie des Ouvrages, called Le Loup, Le Renard et Les... (essentially Aesops Fables) either at Celimene Pompon or at Le Bon Marche, Paris' grand department store which sells needlework, sewing notions and groceries along with haute couture. Why don't we still do that? When I got home I started the design immediately and got most of the way through one block (there are nine) and realized that somehow I was just one stitch off. I put it away in discouragement; the mistake was such that it screwed up the dimensions of the whole block, and I decided to frog out a large part of what I'd put in. I figured I'd get to it one of these days, and today is that day, since we have an enormous frogging project going on elsewhere in the house.

Here's a picture of a bunch of workmen frogging the tiles in the master bathroom floor. In July I took a week off and we had a number of floors redone in the house. We had ceramic tile laid in the master bath and the master closet. We were so pleased with our tile; it doesn't discolor like vinyl does over time, and water wipes up easily. Except our floor couldn't withstand one small miscalculation: Pink. The master bath toilet is in a small alcove with a separate door that I left open. Pink lives in the master bath, not caged. Although his cage with food and litter box and bedding box is in there, he's free to run around. After all, it's tile. What could he harm? At one point BF pointed out the water supply tube, running from the wall to the toilet and mentioned that he thought we should protect it from bunny teeth and I blew it off. It's PLASTIC and the bunny prefers wood, and after a half-hearted attempt to bunny-proof, I didn't bother with it. Last Monday, BF left the house during the day (normally he works from home) to visit clients, and when he got back, water was running down the wall of the kitchen, out the light fixtures and down through the ceiling. Investigating the source, he came upon the supply tube a hole in it, spurting a continuous stream of water into the bathroom. The water was rolling across the tile and disappearing between the wall and the floor. It ran beneath the bathroom floor and the master closet and on into the guest bedroom where it was partly soaked up by the (new) carpet and padding. Then it rolled on down the walls into the kitchen. It had probably been going on for a few hours.

So the nice men at Service Master came Tuesday and set up fans and driers and pulled big holes in the ceiling and wall of the kitchen. Today the insurance adjuster came and tallied up the damage. Meters established that water was trapped under the tile floors, so they had to be broken up so that the subfloor can be dried. Virginia has strict laws about water that may lead to mold. So I've been listening to the sound of breaking tile all day. Fortunately, the flooring will be fully replaced, so other than the hassle and the deductible and the knowledge that it was my own stupidity and laziness that caused this MESS, all is well. Sigh.

Here's Pink in his cage back before the deluge. See the nice tile floor? Poor Pink is pretty smart for a bunny, and he knew something was wrong. Even though his side of the bathroom was dry, he was hiding behind the toilet, standing in an inch or so of cold water when BF came home.

"If I'd known it was wrong, I wouldn't have done it."