ode to a sump pump

Posted on March 22, 2007
Filed Under marriage, suburban joys, snark, homeownership |

There’s still snow here, lots of it. But I’ve heard the meteorologists calling for rain and a thawing warmth. And I should be happy to get rid of Winter seeing as Spring officially began last night, March 20th at around 7 pm. But I am afraid…. There’s one small problem with spring snow. Spring snow turns quickly to ground water and ground water floods our basement and then I can’t sleep for thinking of whether or not the sump pump is doing it’s job and keeping at least one side of the basement dry while the other side collects the seepage until I get down there with a squeegee on the end of a broom stick and push this seepage to the sump pump before it swamps the furnace.

You can imagine me laying up stairs in bed listening to the icicles drip from the antique eaves and fretting. I admit, the historic May flood of last year, the one that found us baling the basement for days while eating our meals out of the toaster in the dining room (our kitchen was being gutted and redone), was almost more than I could endure. Ten years of living in Miami with many hurricane scares and the drama that is weather in the tropics and never, never a drop of water in the house. A move to Massachusetts, a purchase of a home built in 1885 complete with fieldstone basement, and voila- water issues.

I know, I know, I should’ve seen this coming. When we asked the sellers if they’d ever had water issues, they said, “Not many.” NOT MANY, even a fool can see that “not many” was their way of saying, “Yes, every Spring the damn basement fills like a bathtub.” But, as a first-time antique home buyer, a virgin if you will, l I could only see the beautiful leaded windows with built in window seats in the living room, a spacious foyer, the office beneath the stairs, an acre of woods and prolific wisteria climbing the pergola outside the porch. I wasn’t concerned with the nuts and bolts of the thing: sump pumps, radon emissions, knob and tube wiring, a carriage house instead of an attached garage. Come to think of it, buying an old home is kind of like marriage, you enter the relationship all hope and vision and by the second year you can’t even remember what you liked about the thing in the first place. But I digress.

So as the snow turns slushy around the foundation, I’ve been avoiding the basement. I just don’t want to know if there’s flooding. If I see water, I’ll feel compelled to go down there and begin my Sisyphean task of pushing the seepage towards the pump in order to make room for more seepage. My Better Half prefers the “let the thing fill until all the ground water and the neighbors’ groundwater has been safely absorbed into the murky depths of the basement strategy”, and then get out the squeegee. This is too hard for me. I have to control the flooding as it is happening. This is my nature. Today I’m keeping the basement door closed and hoping for the best because I’m too exhausted. And my Jeffrey Cambell rain boots have yet to arrive and I have absolutely nothing to wear to the basement.

Last night’s worry about the basement spiraled into worry about the sound track for the elementary school Cake Walk, into having forgotten to call Sergeant Pathiackis to reschedule the Dasiy Troop tour of the Police Station, into writing a letter to O’s teacher about the Enrichment Program and next year’s class placement, into how we will afford my tuition if I’m accepted into the Creative Writing Workshop I’ve applied to, into how are we going to pay off the staggering credit card debt we amassed doing the kitchen renovation, into what will I do with myself if I’m not accepted into the Creative Writing Workshop, into Oh, enough already, I’m popping an Ambien and praying for sleep….
It knocked me flat. After four hours of delicious, fret-free sleep, I awoke to O saying, very loudly outside my door, “What the Heck, Mom. Why are you so late? I need my breakfast (he pronounces it brefkist).”
I replied, “Yes Prince O, Yes, Prince O, I’m coming.”
It was 6:15 a.m., the first official day of Spring.

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