Wednesday 22 January 2014

tables of water

Truth be told, I've had a couple of nervous peeps on my paws the last week or so.  I did my best to console them.  I purred a lot.  I let them rub my tummy.  I purred some more.  I let them give me chin tickles and behind-the-ear scritches.  I purred even more.  I practically purred myself out!  Yup, that's how much I purred but still, the peeps remained nervous.

Luckily, the nervousness has subsided...  as has the water.  I believe the two are connected.

It all started when Peep #2 came up from the basement and mentioned that there was water in the sump pump.  Just what is a sump pump, you ask?  Who knows.  It's that thing in the corner of the laundry room in my basement.  I usually avoid it, myself but from what I've seen, it's a big hole in the floor.  Don't know WHY the peeps wanted a hole in the floor but they did.  MOUSES!

Anywho...   the big hole in the floor was fillin' up with water.  From what I understood, this was not good.  Apparently, all that snow Santa brought at Christmas started to melt when Mother Nature whipped up the January thaw.  Then, on top of the meltin' snow, it rained.  All that melted snow and rain went into the ground.  Down and down it went until it met up with something called a water table.

Now this is where it gets interesting.  Apparently, under my house, is a table made of water.  Weird, huh?  That's what I thought, too!  Why would anyone make a table out of water?  It's a very strange concept, indeed.

Water doesn't provide a very firm surface so it's a very odd material with which to make a table. Wood is usually used.  That makes sense.  Wood is good and hard.  You put a plate on a wooden table and it sits right there on that table.  You put a plate on a pool of water and...  well...  well it's gonna sink.  That's 'cause water isn't firm like wood or stone or glass or even plastic.  All of those are far better materials with which to make a table.

Now some things can float in water.  I know this from experience.  Now that I think about it, I remember that three or four years ago, that ol' water table got even higher than it did last week and came right up over the basement floor.  It's true.

And do you know what else is true?  Litter boxes are capable of floating in water.  Yup, they float just like little boats and sail around the basement when the basement floods.  I didn't sail in any of 'em, though. In order to do that, I would have had to have gotten into one and that would have necessitated my wadin' through the cold, icy water and my paws would have gotten wet.  I really don't like havin' wet paws.  I could have waited at the bottom step for a litter box to dock and climbed in from there but...  well...  the litter boxes never docked at the staircase.  Also, I didn't have a ticket.  I think one needs a ticket to sail in a boat.  At least, that's what I've heard.  MOUSES!

Furniture, however, does not float.  Neither do appliances.  They just sit in the water.  They just sit there gettin' wet and sometimes, they break.  Peeps lost a freezer the last time this water table reared its ugly head.  They were pretty annoyed, if I remember correctly.  The old little freezer was okay but the big one they had had for only a year went caput.  Apparently, freezers are like cats.  They don't like wet paws, either.

Peepers tells me that the water table has actually come up above the basement floor three times in the fourteen or fifteen years they have lived here.  That table is down there, lurking and just waiting to cause trouble.  Kind of sounds a little like Nosey Neighbour Cat, if you ask me.

Yesterday, that Old Man Winter came back and shoved Mother Nature and her little thaw out of the way.  The colder temperatures mean no more rain.  Oh yeah, sure, we happen to have a blizzard warnin' for today but at least it will be snow comin' down and not rain.  Plus, none of that snow will be melting 'cause it's just way too cold for snow to melt unless it happens to be a flake you've caught on your tongue and it melts in your mouth but quite frankly, it's too cold out there for me to be catchin' the flakes.  I'm stayin' inside today where I'm nice and warm and snug as a bug in a rug. NOT THAT WE HAVE ANY BUGS!  Well...  Nosey Neighbour Cat sometimes bugs me but that's a different kind of bug, I think.

The peeps are quite pleased that it's cold again.  That ol' table of water is droppin' now.  Yup, they can see it gettin' lower and lower and lower in the big hole in the floor of the basement.  The water table is headin'...  south?  No, down.  Yes, most definitely down.

But I have to wonder why anyone would build a house on top of a table made of water.  Well, the peeps weren't responsible for that.  They're responsible for a lot of the foolishness that goes on in my house but not for that.  The people who built the house are the ones who would be responsible for this particular foolishness.  Yes, they really should have known that water simply does not provide a solid surface upon which a house can sit.

From what I've heard, when the basement was originally dug, water started pouring in.  A neighbour on another street said he saw it happenin'. I don't think he was lyin'.  I think he was snoopin' around and whatnot after dark but good thing he was 'cause now we know more about this water table business.

Had I been in charge, I would have stopped digging right there and then and filled in the hole before startin' over but not diggin' down so deeply the second time.  That's what other people livin' around here did when encounterin' the same issue.  But that's not what happened.  Instead, the water drained away and the people buildin' the house just kept on buildin'.  Maybe they were thinkin' of puttin' in an indoor swimmin' pool or somethin'.  Could be.  Stranger things have happened.

But there is a moral to this story and the moral is this.  Don't make tables out of water.  'Nough said.  MOUSES!

36 comments:

  1. Our mom is the stupidest human on the planet. We wrote you a great comment about how smart you are and about our 100-year flood back in the 80s when the water table broke a hole right through the side of our basement. And we told you to keep an empty litter box tied up at the bottom of the stairs and a whole bunch of other great stuff. Then instead a hitting publish, our lame-brained human hit sign-out instead and it all floated away on the tide. So now you have a rather less than terrific comment. Sorry…stay dry when the snows start melting again! Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

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    1. The table BROKE A HOLE in your basement? MOUSES! That must have been really scary. purrs

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  2. Hoomins are funny sometimes. :)

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  3. Wow! Crazy humans!!!
    Sump pumps can be such a hassle sometimes!!!
    ((Husky hugz))
    "Love is being owned by a husky"

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  4. We live in a circa 1860 farm house with a sump pump and high water table so can commiserate.

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  5. Nissy our Uncle has a sump pump in his basement and it back up and they had raw sewage because of all the nasty cold weather and it took 4 days before a plumber could come out and it fix it. *whew* stinky hoomans.

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  6. Wow, that doesn't sound good at all. What a pain that must be. Hope they can figure out a way to fix it.
    Take care and stay dry.

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  7. Thank goodness for sump pumps!!! They do good work for people!!

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  8. dood...knot in R day... but in de dayz oh olden when a bulldawg roamed thiz earth, ther bee a sump pump at hiz place oh residentz two... N de food serviss gurl while old now..... bee just a kid her self bak then....her noes all bout basemints N floodz N sump pumps... N when we asked...we hurd de same thing ewe did....a hole in de floor, filled with water, N knot a fish in site !!???? mouses !!!!

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  9. Cute cute story! I like the perspective. :) Brilliant piece!

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  10. Well, you certainly make your tables weird in Canada! I reckon they should keep an eye open Nissy - I mean you could get wet paws!

    Silver

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  11. Oh no! We do understand all of that Nerissa because we have a table made of water in our crawl space (don't ask) and we have something that pumps sumps too.

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  12. Hey Nerissa, takes all kinds of peeps to make the world go round. I have a sump pump too but for another reason, there is a stream that runs through my basement. I have a floating cement floor with a trough all the way around it so the water from the stream can travel around the floor and supposedly go out the drain, ummmmm if the drain is not broken, it was, but isn't now. My sump pump is still needed for heavy rains and melt downs. See, your peeps are not alone in these silly problems. Now tell me, who would build a house on a stream,,,,,,,,,,,to quote you elegantly,,,,,, MOUSES!!!

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  13. Very nice narrative, Nerissa. You are a great storyteller.

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  14. Holy cats! Maybe your peeps need to get you a life raft, just in case? The water table here is so high that we can't even have basements. We are glad the water table is on its way back down. Maybe the cold weather has its uses after all.

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  15. That is a mess. Happened to my daughter this year. Glad you didn't get in the floating litter box.
    Sue B

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  16. Oh my...water table and floating litter boxes do NOT sound good. And waiting for litter boxes to dock themselves at the bottom of the stairs doesn't sound good either. Hope it gets better soon!

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  17. Oh my! Guess what? My human doesn't know what a sump pump is either. She's never seen one and neither have I. We are taking your moral to your story to heart.

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  18. All our tables here are dry. I hear we are having a drought - maybe that has something to do with it.

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    1. I heard! Ol' Peepers has been growin' those plumeria that have invaded the sunroom and kidnapped my sunpuddles. Some of her plumeria growin' pals live where you live and they've been talkin' about that drought stuff. Very serious business, that is. purrs

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  19. What's water? We live in California like Sparkle does, and we've heard legends of this "water" that rises up or falls from the skies, but we do not have any personal experience. We must take the word of others, like yourself.

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  20. Well Pusia has no problems with water - tables, rain or otherwise as my very own nosey neighbour now knows! But if it started seeping in through the floor I'm sure it would be a very different story!

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  21. I think the indoor swimming pool is the way forwards!!

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  22. Well Nissy we have one of those noisy pump thingies in the corner of our basement too and it drives me nuts when we have rainy days. Ought to be arrested for disturbing the peace.....after all, my litterbox and one of my "feeding stations" is down in that basement and I hate to be disturbed during EITHER of those activities. Anyway, I feel your pain. Let's hope there will be no flood INSIDE your house!

    Hugs, Sammy

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  23. We are so glad to hear that the bad ole water is leaving... cats and water just don't mix!

    You are right, they shouldn't make tables out of water... what were they thinking?

    Noodle

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  24. Nissy you were very smart not to try for the floating litter pan. My poor Chou Lin thought she could reach her's and jumped for it. Large splash, totally wet cat, chaos followed.

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  25. We asked our Angel, Inky, about any skinny on sumps, pumps and where they dump. Seems in times past, when pterodactyls flew, the Dad lived in the land of Phil a delphi a. Catchy huh. Anyhow, why Phil lived there is anycats guess but it he may have been he was checking his lottery ticket picks with the Oracle, but I digress, Inky says there was a sump sans pump in the basement. So maybe there can be a sump, which is doesn't have a pump which may indicate no water table.
    I am of the mind the Oracle gave any liquid table bearer a few bad prophecies so they took their tables to cooler climes. Hence the Canadian Water Table Problem.
    Mouses
    Timmy

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  26. Love the story. Maybe we need to get our sump pump working...

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  27. Oh Wow! In Calgary, in the little house, wes had water that came came from the ceiling and killed some of the appliances and the carpet and some of the furniture, mes did not know that water could be tables in the ground...
    Kisses
    Nellie

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  28. Yep, we gots one of those sump pumps as well, in our cellar. Yes, our house is old, hence the cellar. we don't go down there, but we'd like too. One more fun place to explore.

    Mindy
    Moe
    Cookie
    Mike

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  29. Hi Buddy! We dint have any trouble getting to your page! XOXOXO

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  30. Crikey hope the levels have gone down,xx Speedy

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  31. We know we can totally trust you to make sense of the senseless, Nissy!! Thanks. I am making sure the human here understands about not making tables out of water henceforth!! xox

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  32. I guess that humans are crazy all over da world :)

    XOXO

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I love hearin' from my pals. I really, REALLY do. PURRS.