Washout

It started as a normal Saturday morning. I needed to wash the dogs and shop for the beautiful wife's birthday present and maybe mow a little bit later. Not a very heavy day. I was even thinking I'd have time to play with the girls a little bit in there.
But the washing machine had other ideas.
I got up around 8:30 a.m. when the girls came in and jumped on the bed. I love it when they wake me up with kisses and hugs.
We got breakfast and I let them watch a little TV. I decided to do a load of laundry and start the dishwasher. Then it was time to get the girls ready to go birthday present shopping. I got them dressed after fighting about which clothes to wear.
We yelled back and forth about how they would do their hair and I finally got them into the bathroom to brush their teeth.
With the dogs barking, the children screaming and the dishwasher going, I didn't realize there was a big surprise brewing.
I looked down at the bathroom floor and started yelling at the girls ... "who got water all over the floor?!?"
As I looked around I realized there was way too much liquid for it to have been the girls who did it ... that the water was coming in under the wall.
I ran around the house to the laundry room. I stood there for about five seconds just horrified as water streamed from the laundry room door into the back living room. The carpet was floating like a water bed.
I turned off the water and just stood there for about two minutes.
I mean, what do you do? of course i did the man thing and tried to start sucking it up with a shop vac. I only dumped it twice before giving up that approach.
The Yellow Pages came out and I started going down the list until I found a contractor who was licensed, insured and bonded. They came out and started cleaning it up.
Luckily insurance will pay for all but $500 of the damage.
In the end our house might be better than it was before. ... If only we can live through the process.