Tracks of My Tears

The start of the weekend was ordinary. I decided that yes, I do like that green in the bedroom. The photos I took at night show the color better even though the room looks better now. Even my dad, who is not a green person, likes it now. (Actually he had told me to ignore his opinion because he might be biased against the color.)

My dad cut in around the ceiling because my hands aren’t steady enough. I decided that part of the job was healing from the frantic job of cleaning out the house and (even after excruciating organizing work) shoving it into the basement. The good news is that although I haven’t known where things were for months, they were surprisingly easy to find in the well-organized clutter down there.

And I found my bathroom stuff. It was piled in buckets.

Soon to be unpacked into a proper bathroom!

Anyways, I got the bathroom sink hooked up. I found the Teflon tape and connected the water lines. That’s right, I found something. In my house.

And this morning I went to turn it on. I found the cold water, opened the valve, and heard that little burst when the pipes fill up. Then I turned on the hot and heard it run. Hmm. I guess I had the sink faucet on when I installed it.

I ran upstairs and it was not on. But at this point I could hear dripping. Back downstairs, I could see that the dripping was from a recessed light that had turned into a waterfall.

Chad’s Tears Falls were dry by the time I took this photo. Those holes to the left I stabbed into my brand new freshly painted drywall to try to figure out what was going on. My dad came into town (on his yard work day) and brought me this wonderful orange contraption. We cut a hole in the wall so it would blow air in.

Then we started cutting holes to find where the leak came from. I figured that I drove a screw through a pipe when I installed the sink.

Nope. Nuttin’. These holes are dry as a bone. They are not the source to Chad’s Tears Falls. They must be in the kitchen. So we cut a few holes in there.

Nope. False alarms all three. We could find no evidence of holes punched in the pipes. So I went downstairs while my dad was on the ladder watching all 3 of these holes (including the one that’s been closed up in the photo) and did the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I re-opened the water supply to Chad’s Tears Falls. And I shut it again after like 10 seconds. My dad found nothing. But just as I was bracing myself to open it again and open it bigger, he said, “Wait, where is all this water coming from?”

TO BE CONTINUED