Monday, December 22, 2008

Quite A Fine Mess!

Oh what a day we had. The regular bubble guy took another day off, the evil basticule, and I got stuck up there again. And we were busy. Nothing crazy, just one thing after another. People coming and going. And I firmly believe they watch from the office for my butt to hit that chair and they all decided to run in different directions. I hit the ground running from the word "go" and didn't stop until I left.

About nine thirty I noticed there was water dripping from the ceiling right above my door. I climbed up above the bathroom and stuck my head up through the ceiling tiles and could see a valve that was leaking pretty fast. I called and let the Sarge know and he called maintenance. They show up about 11:45, right when we're in the middle of feeding lunch and doing med pass, of course. They shut off all the water in the house (which they had to do, there being insufficient cut-off valves anywhere) and drain down the lines. Well, it's a big building and it takes awhile for the lines to drain down. Eventually one guy says "It should be okay, go ahead and cut it." The dude up top cuts the line and water proceeds to spew everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It floods out the bathroom and maybe a quarter of the bubble where I'm standing. And of course the bubble is full of all kinds of electrical equipment, including the main breaker panels for the whole house. Oh snap! I'm looking down at the little rubber mat I'm standing on and hope it will protect me.

Well the water finally quits and the whole bubble is steamy and of course, nothing stopped in the house while I was dealing with that. I didn't really expect it to, but it would have made my life a whole lot easier. My windows were foggy and I couldn't hear above the noise of the water and the stupid inmates were all screaming "Turn our water back on, a**hole!"

I was so pleased.

Took them a couple of hours, but they finally got it fixed and the water turned back on and they left to go deal with some frozen pipes. I got a mop from our dorm worker and started trying to clean up the mess. I mopped and wrung and mopped and wrung and swept water and bits of soggy ceiling tile and insulation out the door until the next shift came on. And of course, people were still running in and out like it was all I had to do was open the freaking doors for them. Finally I got BA to come up and run the bubble while I cleaned. (your secret's out btw, dude) With his help I managed to get most of the carnage swept away.

I'm tired.

Tomorrow I get to go do it all over again. Yay!

7 comments:

  1. Almost sounds like a day in the life of a typical housewife with some kids. Almost.

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  2. Actually, it's alot like that. Well, if you had 160 homicidal crackhead children, anyway. And they dumped about 200 gallons of water on my floor. More than one handiwipe could clean up.

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  3. My secrets out!!! Ok, think fast. Bribery, extortion, mucho grande ass kissing.... Nah, it'll be alright. She's one of "us".

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  4. I am wondering why you didn't have the inmates mop and wring, mop and wring, mop and wring. Coulda saved you some on the fatigue factor,....bubble-boy!

    (unstr)<--the name for wee little dumpsters in the land of Lilliput.

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  5. The Housing Unit Control room is off limits to offenders. They might be tempted to start letting their buddies out for a little extra rec time, hehe.

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  6. The one guy who said "it should be okay" gets a lump of coal in his stocking...ya a whole day with water and electricity that's what i'd want to do too.....not!
    loopy

    (yesse) me trying to say yes after the bubbly

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  7. BA- You're cool. She's cool. No worries!

    Auntie- I wish I could have. But that is one of the ultimate no-no's that will get you pretty much immediately fired.

    Loopy- He did apologize about the mess. That's about as good as I was going to get, so I took it. And I'm one of those "I'll just do it myself" types, anyway.

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