The past months have been hot, and humid… and it’s rained. It’s rained a lot. I won’t say I dislike rain. (I will say I dislike heat and humidity.) I actually enjoy those nice cool moist days that are drizzling. I do dislike torrential downpours, especially since some of that water usually shows up in my basement. Keep in mind, this isn’t clean water. It’s not just that my basement is wet. This is muddy rain water and everything is filthy.
My basement has flooded enough times that I pessimistically assume it will happen. I have the vast majority of my basement belongings (including my GINORMOUS stash of yarn) up on shelves just in case. So, fortunately it’s now less about property damage than the huge task of cleaning up.
So, the other night when I woke to hear the thunder and pouring rain, I was nervous. I checked the next morning, and sure enough I had an indoor swimming pool in my basement again. We supposedly had 60 billion gallons of water dumped on us in Chicago, and many of those gallons were in my basement.
I waited for the water to recede down the drain intended for water to go DOWN, not up (as it does when I flood). Then I got out the garden hose and started washing mud away. This was made more difficult by the fact the sprayer that goes on the end of the hose has gone missing somehow
My amazing cleaning angel, Sam, rearranged her schedule to come help with clean up the following day. There was lots of mopping and washing, not to mention spraying walls and baseboards and doors with bleach in an attempt to avoid mold.
A few days later, it occurred to me: one of the few items in the basement that isn’t elevated is the upright freezer. Obviously, not only is the freezer worth a significant amount of money – but so is all the frozen food inside it. This time the freezer had apparently escaped unscathed. After some of the other floods it had not, and the food was ruined and the freezer had to be repaired.
I realized if I moved a few things, the freezer w0uld fit up on the 9-inch concrete slab with the washing machine and dryer. This would increase the chances of its survival during flooding. Moving the freezer across the basement was pretty easy, it’s on coasters. Then I’d just need to tip it back enough for one end to get up on the slab and heft the rest of it up there. It was once I tipped the freezer back toward me, I realized this was a REALLY bad idea to attempt this task on my own. I now had a 200 pound freezer leaning toward me, and was at great risk of being crushed or at least trapped under something very heavy. But, I really couldn’t stop now – it was “do or die”, or at least “do or be crushed under a heavy freezer until someone happens to find me”. Fortunately, I “did” and was able to get the freezer up on the slab.
I haven’t flooded since, hopefully this will be the only incident this year. I do feel pretty proud that I managed to move the freezer. Maybe my gym membership is already paying off, even if I don’t actually GO to the gym that often.
Submitted for publication in the Greeley Citizen
Life of the Lintee Bean 