What Now

DIABOLICAL SEA MONKEYS!

If it rains much more in the next day or two, I'm seriously going to consider wearing floaties to work.

For those of you lucky enough not to work in my office, you probably don't know that it actually flooded in here yesterday. I'm not talking about a tiny bit of water on the carpet, either. I'm talking a soaked carpet, wet paper, ruined foam core apocalypse.

I realized something weird was going on when I walked into the museum and saw two large, drip catching garbage cans sitting in the center of the walkway that runs underneath my office. At first I didn't understand how bad things would have to be upstairs for water to have to actually get through the floor, but then I remembered that my office is right above a concrete barrier that serves as a ceiling downstairs. Oy vey. When I opened the door that runs to the third floor offices, I noticed that it was very humid and there was a very bad smell coming from my end of the hall. I walked into my office and my feet squelched on the carpet. I looked down and saw that with each step, water was welling up around my feet. It was so nasty. The floor up here is filthy at best, because it's too difficult to get a vacuum cleaner up the stairs, and I could only imagine what kinds of new life forms were being reconstituted like diabolical sea monkeys in the now soaking nap . The water was still dripping onto the carpet occasionally, but it had slowed down enough to make passage into the room safe enough. My office was destroyed. Granted, my computer was salvaged, due to my co-workers efforts and my other electrical equipment was luckily sheltered under a concrete overhang, but almost everything else in there was wet, had been wet, or was damp because the heater came on at night and caused the humidity to rocket. I hadn't seen windows that steamed up since I was 16!

I called the COO, because the last time our ceiling leaked this bad (albeit on the other end of the hallway) he came up to survey the damage. You know, kind of like how the president will fly to one of those towns that have been badly damaged in some kind of storm. They can't do anything to help, but they walk around looking concerned. Apparently the Leak Of Doom was too old news to get him back up here, so a team of building maintenance men came up to see what was going on. They sort of tried to use a shop vac on the carpet, but even they saw it was an exercise in futility. They did empty out the water filled garbage cans for me, though, which was nice.

By this time I was wet to the knees. As you know, I'm short, and most of my jeans are a smidge too long for me. Their hems touch the floor, and I'm bad about stepping on them. This time, however, every time I'd do it, water would wick up through the hems. My feet and legs were wet and cold all day!

They finally decided that they would attach a rain gutter along the seam in the roof that is leaking so badly. Attach a rain gutter INSIDE my office. I mean, seriously, I can't get more white trash unless I get patio furniture and have a duck running around loose in here. Come on! At any rate, the gutter actually worked very well, with only a little bit of leaking in some spots. They have to channel the water into a trash can for now, which they have to empty periodically, but they are going to figure out a better way soon. I hope. We've estimated that about a hundred gallons (maybe a bit more) soaked through my office yesterday. Nice.

Losses are few, but annoying. I have been recycling old signs so that we don't have to order more foam core as often, but my stash got wet and is now mostly ruined. A bulletin board that I keep some of my sketches and samples on got wet and I had to throw a lot of things away. Spiderman got soaked, but he's made of nylon, so I'm going to leave him alone and see if he dries out. I had a sketchbook that I had been using to draw what was going to be my Christmas card this year, and now that is ruined. Both chairs in my office are wet, but I don't have anywhere else to sit, so my butt has been wet for two days. It's not pleasant. Luckily my Chewbacca and Obi Wan standees were in a safe place, but Mace Windu wasn't as lucky. He wasn't my favorite Jedi, but dangit, I liked him protecting the door. If anyone knows what a Jedi funeral entails, please e-mail me and let me know so that he gets a proper send off.

At any rate, things seem to be getting less...wet in here. I'm hoping that my carpet dries out soon and the bad smell goes away. If you've heard that I have died of some kind of weird fungal disease, please note that it probably came from the carpet in my office.

That is all.