Desktop Dynamo

My sink runneth over...

For the most part I handle this going deaf thing pretty well.

For the most part.

True, I make too many jokes about it, poke a little too much fun at myself, and I can see where that causes an uncomfortable silence in people...a silence that even I can hear.

But I deal with it. I remain functional. I seem to get my job done, and people who know me and work with me get around it. They jot me notes. They talk slow on the off-chance I'll read their lips correctly. If I'm in the warehouse at work, the folks driving the pallet jacks know I sometimes don't hear them coming and they follow along slowly behind me until I see them and get out of their way.

So, again, I work around it. The people around me work around it. We make allowances, together. I forget sometimes that the deafness isn't just about me, but everyone who must interact with me. It must be an extremely frustrating thing at times for everyone else, but God bless them they put up with it...and with me.

But sometimes going deaf frustrates the hell out of me, and tonight was a night that got to me.

Long story short, my mother-in-law is in the hospital with a broken hip. I left work and came home to freshen up a bit before going to see her. I was the only one at the house. I turned on the water in the bathroom sink and walked to my dresser. Something distracted me (I'll blame our cats, they're convenient fall-guys). I forgot all about the water running like Niagara Falls in the sink a mere five feet away. A torrent of water I simply couldn't hear. Off I went to visit my mother-in-law. No one else was home to head off the imminent disaster. Jimbo's mini-Katrina.

I've no idea how long the water ran. My guess is 1-2 hours, maybe more. My wife got home and there was water all over the bathroom floor. There was water in the bedroom, where it made a swamp of part of our rug. Water had seeped through the floor and down into the cellar, making a small lake near the oil tanks.

Water, water, everywhere (as the saying goes).

Hopefully there's no major damage. Hopefully it was all mopped up in time, and our bathroom vanity won't warp and our tiles won't buckle. Hopefully the biggest shot will be to my pride. Clearly I'm not to be trusted around sinks and faucets anymore.

So while 99% of the time I deal with approaching deafness pretty well, there are times like tonight when it really gets to me. My poor wife and daughter had to listen to me cussing myself for an hour while I was on the mop-up-mission-from-hell. They wisely just stayed out of my way and let me vent.

Which is what I'm doing right now...still venting. And now...now it's off to bed. I plan to rise early and do more work on No Cognitive Defect. I've been researching blizzards in Nebraska, and weaving that into the story. I want to get an early start tomorrow. I will need to make coffee, of course, which means using the kitchen sink before dawn. When everyone else is asleep. I simply can't work that early without a fresh cup of java to get me started. Hopefully I won't need scuba gear for the trip through the kitchen for that second cup.