Y’all remember last week, when I told you I hoped that I wouldn’t be writing about the Long Suffering Husband’s adventures in plumbing this week?

Yeah, well, that went about as well as expected. I thought he had it well in hand, but I should have known better. Maybe I jinxed it? No one tell him I jinxed it.

He was supposed to remove the shut-off valve from the downstairs bathroom – the city’s hard water had literally eaten parts away and now I’m afraid to drink the tap water after what I’ve seen it do to stainless steel – and replace it.

It should have been easy-peasy. Should have been.

Only the house is very old and all the fittings are nonstandard, so he intended to take the valve to the hardware store, thus securing the correct part. (I’m not saying he’s purchased the wrong part before, but … ) Since it was the shut-off valve, he needed to shut off the water to the entire house.

Too bad he was in such a hurry he forgot to shut off the water.

Now, I was actually taking five minutes to relax. The fact that I actually sat down and picked up a book for the first time in I don’t know how long should have sent up some warning flags.

Add a smidge of chocolate to the mix, and, really, I was just asking for it.

Our Sassy Saint burst into the room, eyes wide.

“Momma, there’s water everywhere!”

I was caught off guard. “What? You didn’t flood the kitchen again, did you?”

“Water! Daddy!” she gasped.

I jumped up and ran downstairs. The LSH was dripping wet and had jammed my wash bucket under the pipe coming out of the wall. The water gurgled merrily as it poured out of the wall.

I was speechless. I hope you appreciate that. Completely speechless. I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound accusatory. Mostly because I was going to accuse him of flooding the bathroom.

I mean, honestly, y’all, my downstairs carpets!

“I’m going to go get the part,” he said. “I’ve shut off the water and it should drain out in a few minutes. Just watch it and make sure it doesn’t get all over the floor.”

It was already all over the floor, but you would have been proud of me – I didn’t. It was a close thing, however.

So I waited for the water to stop. And waited. And switched buckets. And waited some more. Bailed some. Cursed a lot. And waited.

Finally, I called Sass. “It’s been half an hour. The lines ought to be empty. Go and check and see if the water has been shut off.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the LSH … no, wait, he disassembled the plumbing with the water still running, I totally didn’t trust him.

She reported back a few minutes later. “It’s turned to the left.”

This was worrisome – left meant off – and I wondered if the city water also did a number on the main shut-off valve and how we would fix that without the city racking us for service fees, especially since it was the water that was ruining all our plumbing.

After 45 minutes of bailing, the LSH returned.

“We’ve got a problem,” I said. “There is water still running through the lines. I think the main valve is ruined, too.”

I think he actually blanched. “I’ll go check.”

He disappeared, and, a moment later, the lines rattled and the water slowed to a trickle. He poked his head into the bathroom, where I was surrounded by half-full buckets of water and soaked to the skin.

” … it wasn’t turned all the way off,” he admitted sheepishly.

At least it works?

(Wallace-Minger, a resident of Weirton, is community editor of The Weirton Daily Times.)