Appliances Gone Wild

Look at me, posting twice in a week! Let's pause before proceeding to pat me on the back. While we're tooting my horn (and using the royal "we"), please note that both posts were executed while I was encumbered with not one but two little bundles of humanity. Why won't they let me put them down for a minute when it's over 100 degrees outside? Why?

So, my appliances are conspiring against me. Technically, only the refrigerator has rebelled so far, but the washer sounds wonky and I assume it's only a matter of time before a full-scale revolt is underway. When I got up with the twins at 2am last night, I heard a strange sound downstairs but thought it was the dishwasher (which had better NOT be part of the conspiracy, as it is brand-freaking-new). As I headed back to bed at 3 (the twins are slooooow eaters at night), I heard that the noise was continuing, so I ventured downstairs to investigate. I stepped into the kitchen and into an inch of running water. Not a pleasant surprise. I panicked my way around the room, shutting off the fan and the dishwasher and turning on lights until I finally figured out that the source of the flood was the stupid refrigerator. I already have a grudge against this refrigerator, which brings me to the following tangent:

TANGENT (might as well label them, as they are inevitable): In our 6 year relationship, my husband and I have made many purchasing decisions together. During last night's refrigerator fiasco, I quickly reviewed our purchases mentally and came up with the following list, in severity order, of the stupidest:
1) Chevy Venture van
2) Stupid dog
3) This damned refrigerator:









Okay, so back to the flood. I ran upstairs (no small feat, considering that I weigh a metric ton and have been virtually immobile for the past nine months) and got my husband. Together, we discovered that not only was the kitchen flooded (and the water still flowing freely from the fridge), but the water was POURING into the basement from access holes under the kitchen island and in a waterfall down the basement stairs. Standing water filled the basement and was soaking everything from the cat's litter box to the extra twin stroller. I then flew upstairs again and woke up my mother, because being a 30 year old mother of four has in no way altered my knee-jerk I-want-my-mother response to crisis.

Fortunately (I guess this is fortunate), our basement has a history of usually rain-related flooding, so we recently got both a shop vac and a dehumidifier. My poor husband spent over an hour in the basement working with both (once he got the water turned off), while my mother sopped up the kitchen with towels and moved items in the basement out of the path of the deluge and I twittered about uselessly.

Amazingly, nothing seems to be permanently damaged, and for once I have reason to be glad the babies are up half the night - I hate to think how bad it might have gotten if we'd slept through several more hours of the downpour. I guess this is the cosmic reaction to me commenting about leading a fairly dull life lately, so let me clarify for the record that I was merely commenting, not complaining. I need no further trials or tribulations to brighten my life. Thank you for your attention, cosmic forces.