Nor any a drop to drink

After the Cardinals' long-delayed win last night (over three hours due to thunderstorms), I decided I'd take of a couple things and then get to bed relatively early. One of those things was running the dishwasher, but when I reached under the sink for the soap, I found something unexpected: Several inches of standing water. Obviously it had been there for some time, since the entire floor of the cabinet was sagging in the middle. I also found water on the kitchen floor and warping of the floorboards.

I debated waking the Old Man or not, since he had a very long day the next day, but I figured it was better than having him discover it himself while making coffee or something. Also, I needed the contact information for the plumber who had replaced our faucet two weeks earlier. He took the news well, and went to fetch the invoice while I bailed out the cabinet with a saucepan and a ladle.

During the man's visit, monshu had discovered that our flashlight was gone, so there was no way for me to make a thorough inspection of the pipes. I simply ran my hand along them searching for leaks; I didn't find any. It was too late to phone the plumber, so I satisfied myself with grabbing some old towels from the basement and throwing them over the wet spots.

As an added complication, the cleaning women came today, so as I was getting dressed I researched the Polish for, "There's water under the sink." In the end I didn't need it; they understood just fine. I finally got through to the plumber around quarter to nine; he told me he'd let me know "in an hour or two" when he could send someone. I left a voicemail for my boss and then did my best to stay out of the ladies' way for the next couple hours. When they left, I crawled back into bed and fell asleep, snuggled up next to the cat.

I awoke a little before noon. Before I could quite collect my thoughts, the phone rang and it was the plumber telling me he had someone in the area finishing up a job and he'd be "right over". I rushed upstairs, made tea, and hastily cleared everything out of the cabinet, which mercifully had not yet reflooded. It was another hour before the guy actually got there; after it became clear that "right over" met something different to him than it did to me, I reheated some leftovers for lunch and called work again.

Only then did I check my cellphone and find five messages from my right-hand man at work, informing me that, if it was alright with me, he was taking a "last-minute vacation day". I texted back something testy about how I'd been counting on him to be there for our student worker, who was due in at one o'clock, which unleashed an unhelpful barrage of abject self-loathing apologies. Fortunately, I was able to reach someone in my section and pass on instructions for the student, as well as the news that I would be in later if I could swing it.

The visit was brief: Within minutes, he'd found the leak, a slow drip from the faucet installation. When he left a half-hour later, he practically slunk away. I felt sorry for him. He was polite, professional, and had a voice that reminded me of Pinto Colvig. It wasn't him who had caused the problem, but you could see he felt responsible for it all the same. "Mike will follow up with you by phone," he said as he was almost at the door.

So I guess the next order of business is to monitor the spot to make sure the leak's really fixed and to take some pictures for evidence in case we can't resolve this amicably. I'm not sure if the plumber has a man he'll send to repair the damage or whether we should call in a carpenter to give us an independent estimate. Part of me wants to go ahead and rip out the floor of the cupboard now and find out just how bad it is underneath.