The "Time to Build the Ark" Story

It was an ordinary day. We are walking the promenade in Cape May. Neat two block area with shops on both sides of the walkway and more shops on side streets. At the end of the two block area is another small shopping mall with more stores. They redid the entire promenade last year because the roots of the trees that shaded the area were starting to break the sewer and water lines. Took some time to get used to the area without the beautiful big trees, but time will help the new trees reach the same status. Carol and I have our favorite shops that we like to walk through and we almost always leave with more than what we came with. We were at the small shopping mall area beyond the church when the cell phone rang. We thought it must be one of the grand kids wondering when we will return. Every year we spend a week with the kids and grand kids at Ocean City, NJ and this day is our day to get away from the hectic routine. But, it wasn't one of the grand kids or even the kids. It was Leah, our cat sitter. She had just arrived at our house to feed the cats and to give them their medicine and found something wrong. Uh, Oh!! It had rained for two days straight at home and my new sump pump which I installed after the last basement flooding had not worked. Well, it worked, but not fast enough to keep the basement dry. When Leah went to the basement to check the kitty litter pans, she found one of them floating by the basement steps. We had water up to the third step from the bottom. So glad I kept up the flood insurance payments. Leah told us she put the kitty litter on the first floor for the cats. And shortly after she did this, she noticed that the water was going down. Since we were returning in two days, I told her I would take care of the basement when I returned. Oh, and another problem she told us. Seems the cabinet in the laundry room fell off the wall. She set it upright and I could re-hang it when I got home. Oh, the joys of going on vacation! Well, when we returned home I bought another sump pump and installed it along side the first one. This one was a giant and when I tested it, it threw the water out of the basement test tank with such force that it unearthed my wife's flowers in the flower bed where the water exited the house. Carpet was ruined and had to be replaced as well as all the drywall needed to be replaced to the level of the water. When I started to remove the drywall, I discovered we had a family of mice living in the wall that did not survive the storm. 6 adults and so many baby mice that I couldn't even count them all. And ..... the odor was terrible. All repairs were luckily covered by insurance and we managed to talk Leah into returning again. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.