I woke up last night and I felt the bed was wet. The first thing I thought is I’m reverting to childhood. Woe is me, a trip to the store for Depends. Then I thought George or Cat were trying to wake me up, and since I was in a deep sleep and dreaming about walking in the rain, they decided what the hell, we’ll show him.
But no, it wasn’t them or me. I finally became completely awake and turned on the light. I looked around and saw no one with water pistols lurking. I finally look up. There coming out of my ceiling was a large dark area with a shimmering pool of water drip, drip, dripping onto my bed. I knew we hadn’t had any storms, so what could it be?
I got dressed and climbed into the attic and there over my bedroom and bed was the air conditioner condenser with a large drip pan under it that was overflowing. The pipe had become clogged and water had no place to go. So remembering some basic physics about liquids taking the path of least resistance, it made complete sense to me that the path was straight to my bed.
I then set out to find the culprits of this clog, the makers of rainy dreams and Depends underwear nightmares. I finally found the pipe leading from the drip pan to the outside was clogged with mud and wasp like creatures flying all around. I immediately recognized them as “dirt daubers” or for non-southern people the dirt dauber is also called mud wasp, mud dauber, or potter wasp. For those with entomological inclinations:
Scientific Name: Chalybion, Sceliphron and other genera
Order: Hymenoptera: Sphecidae
Anyway, I prodded and poked the pipe to remove the mud and then got a garden hose to run water through the pipe to further unclog it. After about 30 seconds of this an epiphany of horror overtook me. I realized I was further flooding my bedroom. I stopped and rushed to the bedroom. To my horror the shimmering pool with water drops had turned into a torrent. The perfectly flat ceiling now had a bulge right over my bed.
Being very inquisitive and Mr. Home Repair, I jump on top of my bed and push at the bulge. My hand proceeded to go straight through the sheet rock, and once again physics came into play. I became part of the path of least resistance with water cascading over me onto the bed. Hah I thought. I’ve solved the dripping problem.
The water now drips to its appropriate place and I have a soggy ceiling with a hole in it. I’ve been entertaining dreams of again demonstrating my home repair expertise, but I’m holding off that for the moment. For now it’s drying things out and moving the bedroom around so there will be no repeat dreams of walking in the rain. I thought I am getting to old for this and to cover all bases I went out and purchased a pack of Depends. Just in case.