Fighting the Inundation

Greetings everyone!

The past several days have been a test of endurance for me in several ways. The test began Sunday evening. I was watching a movie called "Boys of Brazil", an odd thriller, drama, and sci-fi mashup involving neo nazis, Dr. Mengele, and boy clones of Hitler. It was late at night and with all the suspense lingering in the air I began to feel a desire for some dessert. It had been raining very hard the entire night and the rain gave a peaceful background ambiance to the darkness. Well I walk over to the kitchen, through the door, and immediately feel water wash over my foot. I froze. Could it be? Immediately I pulled my foot away and turned on the light. Yes, the kitchen had officially flooded.

At that point I found it difficult to think. All these thoughts were flooding into my mind from all different directions. Where do I even begin? How do I get the water out? Do I have a mop? Should I speak with the landlady? Where did the water come from? Is there a leak in the wall somewhere? Upon further examination of the kitchen I discovered that the water was not draining out through the drain pipe and I concluded that the water likely came up through the pipe itself and overflowed into my kitchen. I decided to begin by contacting people and asking for advice. I sent out an S.O.S on the expat forum and received replies within 15 minutes. I also spoke to the landlady who was busy cleaning up flooding on the floor below me. She told me the best way to get rid of the water was to take old rags and use the soak and squeeze technique (soak the water up in the rags and squeeze it out into the toilet). What I think might have happened, I've since concluded, is that the water got backed up from the ground floor and spilled out from the drain in my kitchen.

Well I got most the water out of the kitchen but unfortunately for me the water had also soaked through some of the carpeting. I dried the carpeting as best I could but it really required time to air dry. One thing I never knew about wet carpeting is that it stinks! It really smells awful. Going to sleep that night was miserable. The smell was so intense. Alas I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and a lethargy I hadn't known since my computer game days in high school. Luckily since Monday was the first day of Carnaval I didn't have any classes so I could just mope around the apartment in a dreary stupor. The smell had receded a bit but the carpet was still a little damp so the smell continued to linger, attacking my sense of smell in intermittent bursts. One of the highlights of the day was lying on the floor of the apartment, partly to avoid the smell and partly because of my lethargic mood, with my eyes closed and listening to Prairie Home Companion. Ah, what a wonderful show. How it made me miss buttermilk biscuits (even though I've never tried them), rhubarb pie, and New Orleans (even though I've never been there).

Now that the floods have receded I think things should settle back to normal.

Cheers,

Kyle