Flooding 101
So I was all ready to leave house at 6 in the morning for a short trip to Mumbai. The brother out of a sudden burst of sisterly love, got ready to leave me to the bus stop. In a feat of machismo he did something to the wash basin valve and the pipe broke. YES! there he was standing with the valve handle in his hand and two separate pipes hanging in mid air, oozing forceful bouts of water. Within minutes we were standing in a pool of water.
Here's a few things you should try or avoid.
* STOP laughing hysterically. And if you can't control yourself, go smother yourself. [person in picture here is yours truly. I still cannot get that scene out of my head and stop laughing]
* Run for all the things lying on the floor. Common Sense. [We did not. And house is full of wet chatais, chappals, clothes bag etc]
* Try to remember all that fluid mechanics (FM) related physics. Try applying the knowledge to the situation. And if you still cannot figure out the piping structure of the house, open random taps elsewhere and let water flow. The objective here is to try to relieve the broken pipe of water pressure. [A civil engineer and an electrical engineer could not figure this out! I am sure it has got nothing to do with those bunked FM classes]
* Knock on neighbors' door even if its 6 am on a Friday morning. Even if they curse you seeing your grinning face while explaining the situation, ask for their help. [dear neighbor was very reluctant to hand over the terrace keys to me, saying people will start needing water in half an hour, until I told him how they might have to visit our house to get/use all the tank water puddled inside our house]
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| image courtesy Google |
* Call up that plumber whom you befriended on his last visit to the household. And rejoice when the saint like figure with a halo, arrives equipped with all the war material at 6.30 am. [Seriously if it wasn't for the god like plumber who agreed to visit us, our house would have resembled a scene from waterworld]
* While the plumber is fixing the issue, don't just stand there and imagine various swimming techniques. Start gathering old cloths and start wiping the floor. Great wrist and arm strength comes handy while wringing those cloths. Otherwise life can be a bit difficult. [I almost got out 2 buckets full of water using this technique in half an hour despite blessed with skinny arms.]
* Leave the house relieved once the problem has been fixed and catastrophe has been avoided. Pray to god that nothing disastrous happens when you are away.
~nightflier