You’re Welcome, Mom

Have you ever done something stupid that caused a major catastrophe, but then it ended up being a good thing? It’s kind of like the stupid thing you did was meant to happen all along? Well, let me tell you a story.

It is Christmastime. My husband, Pat, and I are in Ohio visiting our families. The plan is to stay a few days with my mom in Columbus, then spend a day in Lambertville, Michigan at my sister’s house. She and her husband are hosting my family’s holiday get-together. From Julie’s place, Pat and I will drive to Cleveland and spend a few days with Pat’s family before we fly back home to California.

My mom lives in a two-bedroom condo that she and my dad bought as both an investment property and their retirement home when my siblings and I were kids. And that’s what it was. My parents collected rental income for several years and, when they were ready to downsize, sold the house they had lived in for over thirty years, renovated the condo, and moved in. Several years after moving into the condo, my dad died, and now my mom lives there by herself.

My mom utilizes three floors of her condo. Two bedrooms and a bathroom are on the second floor. Her living room, kitchen and half-bath are on the first floor, and her family room and laundry are in the basement.

Every Christmas, my youngest brother Jim, flies up from Tampa to spend time with my mom. He’s in Columbus with Pat and me now.

You’d think that with him, my mom, Pat and me, staying in the condo, our sleeping accommodations would be uncomfortably cramped, but we get along fine. (Usually because my mom gives up her bed to Pat and me and she and Jim sleep on the twin beds in the guest room.) It’s only when Julie is staying there with all the rest of us, that someone ends up having to sleep on the living room couch.

It’s time to leave for Julie and Tom’s house for the Christmas party. We are taking two cars since Pat and I won’t be returning to my mom’s place. Jim is driving with my mom in her car. They’ll be spending the night at Julie’s house. Pat and I are still gathering all of our things when Jim and Mom leave. We’re running about five minutes behind them.

I just need to pee one more time before Pat and I leave so I can make the three-hour drive to Lambertville without a rest stop. I choose to pee in the first-floor bathroom rather than climb the stairs again, even though the first-floor toilet has a running problem. The problem is that it won’t stop running. A regular athlete, that toilet. (Get it? A runner? I crack myself up.) I am confident that I can get the toilet to stop running – some handle jiggling after I flush – so I go for it.

I pee. I flush. It runs. I jiggle. I jiggle. It runs. It runs. Pat’s getting impatient as three minutes pass and the toilet is still running. I try flushing again so I can jiggle again immediately afterwards, but it won’t flush. It continues to run. It’s obsessed with running. I will transform myself into the toilet whisperer. I will get it to stop by pretending like I know what I am doing.

I shut the lid to the toilet and lift the lid to the tank. I place the tank lid on the toilet seat. I look at the innards of the tank. I see that by lifting this bubble ball thing, the running stops. So, I just have to figure out a way to keep the bubble ball thing up. Hmm.

I hatch a plan. I find a ruler in Mom’s basement. By using it and a box of Kleenex, I somehow jerry-rig a contraption that seems to work. It’s keeping the bubble ball up and the running has stopped. I’m a hero!

“Okay, we can go. I have it fixed for now. Jaime can fix it for real when they get back.” I tell Pat. And with that, we lock the door and leave for Lambertville.

—   —   —

“Oh, Jill,” my mom sighs. “Why didn’t you just turn off the water to the toilet?” My mom seems disappointed after I explain what I’ve done to her toilet.

“You can do that?” I ask, a bit bummed that she doesn’t see the genius of my contraption.

“Yes, Jill!” Jaime feels compelled to pipe in and show off his superior intellect. “It’s down in the back of the toilet.” How am I supposed to know about toilet water shut-off valves?

“Well,” I say to Jaime, “It should hold at least until you get back and then you can shut the water off.” I turn and go back to the buffet, seeking a conversation with someone who recognizes and respects how clever I am.

—   —   —

“Hi, Julie,” I answer my cell phone. Pat and I are still in Cleveland. It’s been a couple of days since we were at Julie’s.

“Hi, Jill. I’m calling with some bad news.”

“Oh, dear. What?”

“When Mom and Jimmy got home after spending the night at our house, there was about an inch-and-a-half of water covering the kitchen floor…from the toilet.”

My heart drops. “Oh, my God. Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Well, Mom didn’t want you to know because she knew you’d feel bad.” Of course, I feel bad! I could have left Cleveland early and spent my last days in Columbus before going back home to California. I could’ve helped with the clean-up.

Julie goes on to tell me that, according to Jimmy, “When they got home and Mom opened the back door to the kitchen, she panicked. The kitchen floor was flooded and there was a waterfall of toilet water rushing down the basement stairs.

“Because it was Christmas-time it was impossible for Mom and Jimmy to get a hold of any professionals right away, so they had to sweep the water off the kitchen floor and out the back door themselves. All the equipment rental companies were also closed for the holiday, so Jimmy went to Kroger and rented all of their wet vacs and fans.”

I groan. Here I thought I had been so crafty fixing that damn toilet.

We hang up and I call my mom. “Mom, I am so, so sorry.” I have identified the pain in my abdomen as a pit that has taken root in my stomach.

My mom tells me that she and Jimmy finally have some dehumidifiers running and the insurance appraiser had just left. Thank God my mom has homeowners’ insurance! The appraiser told my mom that the vinyl floor in the kitchen is ruined. The carpet is ruined in the living room and because the same carpet runs all the way up to the second-floor landing, it will all have to be replaced. The wallpaper in the dining area will have to be stripped. All the rooms on the first floor, the walls along the stairway to the second floor, the second-floor hallway and the ceiling in the basement will have to be repainted because of water stains. The carpet going down the stairs to the basement and covering the entire basement will have to be replaced. The bathroom door on the first floor is all swollen and won’t shut properly. Some baseboards will have to be replaced. There are water stains on the paneled walls of the basement that cannot be replaced because “it would be impossible” to find the same shade of cedar. Oh, yeah, Mom will need a new toilet on the first-floor. And beyond all that, the condo smells terrible.

My head is spinning with all the damage I’ve caused. I feel nauseous. The pit has completely filled my stomach cavity, stretching it beyond its ability to stretch. I feel sick. I thought for sure my jerry-rigged contraption would work. How can I ever face my mom when, because of me, her home is ruined?

My mom assures me that there’s no need for me to come back to Columbus; everything is being handled.

Pat and I fly back home.

I call my mom the next day and learn that the condo association is making her pay to fix the boiler for the whole building because water from her condo had leaked on it. The pit can’t get any bigger…

A few weeks pass and I fly back to Columbus. I am joining my mom, Julie, and my brothers to pick out replacement carpeting for the living and family rooms and new vinyl tiles for the kitchen. There are some snide remarks about my stupidity, but I can take it.

It is on this shopping trip when I learn that papers in my dad’s four-drawer file cabinet in the basement had been damaged by the toilet water raining from the basement ceiling during the catastrophe. There is absolutely no way the pit can grow any more without rupturing my stomach wall.

Finally, it is not until twenty minutes ago, when asking my mom and siblings about some of the details of this catastrophe that I learn of yet more damage that my jerry-rigging caused. Jimmy tells me that many, many years ago, when the U.S. Post Office came out with Elvis Presley stamps, my dad bought a bunch of them for each of his kids. During one trip to Columbus after the flood, Jim and my mom were going through the drawers of my dad’s filing cabinet and discovered that the Elvis stamps were all glued together and water-damaged. Mom had Jimmy go to the Post Office to see if he could at least recover the printed cash value of the stamps, but alas, he got a big fat “no.”

 I have apologized to my mom many times for the havoc I caused with my toilet-fixing initiative. My mom, in the end, was the recipient of practically a whole-home remodel, covered almost entirely by her insurance. A free home makeover. And do you think she’s ever thanked me?