Last month my wife and I decided to go on vacation. We bought our plane tickets, packed our bags, set up a house sitter to stay and watch our dogs bring in our mail etc. and flew 800 miles away. We decided to stay with old and dear friends. Friends that we have known for years and consider to be family. The kind of people that you know longer have to worry about impressing. You know that they accept you and you accept them. We have both been burned out with work and decided our only obligation for this week is to relax. Recover. Be refreshed.
Our plane landed on Wednesday, we had dinner met with family and went to sleep early.
I woke up Thursday morning with 3 missed calls, 4 texts, and a voicemail. I immediately was annoyed, didn't they know this was MY VACATION!? I need rest! I DESERVE rest! I assumed there was an issue with work and decided it could wait until I'd had my morning coffee.
I finally braced myself for whatever was so pressing that MY VACATION was being intruded upon.
I pressed play on my voicemail as I sipped my coffee and heard the voice of our house sitter...
"...umm...there's about 2 to 3 inches of water covering your basement right now. Uh, what does this mean? What should I do? Call me back!"
This kicked off the next 5 or 6 hours of me frantically making phone calls, calling in favors, seeing who could help that wasn't already at work. Calling the kindest and dearest souls I knew. Giving over the phone lessons on sump pump repair. While my wife started calling different insurances and seeing what steps we needed to take first. "Grab the wet dry vac and pull up as much as you can." "The instruments need to be moved to a dry place." My stress level continued to rise as I did my best to orchestrate all the work that needed to be done to save the things I had worked so hard for, all from 800 away and my flight back wasn't scheduled for a week.
Finally I got the call that I had been dreading "uuummm...there's sewage pouring in from every drain." I put my head down and muttered a specific swear word, laughed at my ironic choice of four letter words and told my intrepid crew "well, you've done all you can, turn off the power to the house and get somewhere dry. We'll see what this looks like later."
I hung up the phone, sat down on my friends front porch and allowed myself one 15 minute freak out. Frustrated wordless screams, punching the dirt, and looking up to the silent Heavens. "...well, crap." I brushed myself off and headed inside waiting to see what the next day would bring...
Our plane landed on Wednesday, we had dinner met with family and went to sleep early.
I woke up Thursday morning with 3 missed calls, 4 texts, and a voicemail. I immediately was annoyed, didn't they know this was MY VACATION!? I need rest! I DESERVE rest! I assumed there was an issue with work and decided it could wait until I'd had my morning coffee.
I finally braced myself for whatever was so pressing that MY VACATION was being intruded upon.
I pressed play on my voicemail as I sipped my coffee and heard the voice of our house sitter...
"...umm...there's about 2 to 3 inches of water covering your basement right now. Uh, what does this mean? What should I do? Call me back!"
This kicked off the next 5 or 6 hours of me frantically making phone calls, calling in favors, seeing who could help that wasn't already at work. Calling the kindest and dearest souls I knew. Giving over the phone lessons on sump pump repair. While my wife started calling different insurances and seeing what steps we needed to take first. "Grab the wet dry vac and pull up as much as you can." "The instruments need to be moved to a dry place." My stress level continued to rise as I did my best to orchestrate all the work that needed to be done to save the things I had worked so hard for, all from 800 away and my flight back wasn't scheduled for a week.
Finally I got the call that I had been dreading "uuummm...there's sewage pouring in from every drain." I put my head down and muttered a specific swear word, laughed at my ironic choice of four letter words and told my intrepid crew "well, you've done all you can, turn off the power to the house and get somewhere dry. We'll see what this looks like later."
I hung up the phone, sat down on my friends front porch and allowed myself one 15 minute freak out. Frustrated wordless screams, punching the dirt, and looking up to the silent Heavens. "...well, crap." I brushed myself off and headed inside waiting to see what the next day would bring...
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