There's a Problem in Here

Me on the phone with Dad afterwards.


So how was the worst night of your life??

This is an almost verbatim email I just sent my sister:

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This has been one for the record books. It'll be a hell of a blog entry one day soon.

I've been up since maybe 3am Friday. I looked at the clock at 3:43 and gave up trying to sleep shortly thereafter. My mind was racing.

Not only was I exhausted, but I threw my back out again. Not as bad as last time. I told Kelli I was at a 7 on a 1-10 scale. Last time was 8s and 9s.

So I was on the couch at almost 9pm with some pain cream on my back when THEBOY yelled, "There's a problem in here!" He'd been frustrated with his video games, and we expected more of the same. We asked him what the problem was.

He told us water was dripping through his ceiling.

CRAP.

Sure enough it was.

I was exhausted, just out of my mind already, due to crash any time. Suddenly we were hustling up buckets to catch the slow, steady drips.

I called Dad, who suggested I get in the attic and caulk what I could find. It was all in one place, indicative of one failure in the roofing somewhere.

I got up there to caulk and it did no good. The more I spread that junk around, the more drips I found. I wanted to freakin' cry, but I didn't.

A leaky roof is a personal phobia of mine. I admit it. Several times during this I went to Kelli and just told her to calm me down.

I finally figured out that some rotted wood between two sections of the roof that are different heights was the culprit. I'm the fool who didn't sweep the leaves out, and they ruined the damn wood when they got soaked. My freakin' fault.

An easy 8 feet of wood got messed up. It'd take POUNDS of caulk or sealant to do anything.

Finally a solution came to me: A tarp. I had a 25x10 foot tarp that could extend over the top peak of the house while covering the damaged spot. So in a thunderstorm I hauled 15-16 huge rocks from my yard up the ladder. Remember that my back was out, okay. I simply had to force it to go. It did loosen up after a while, but I know I'll be a wreck tomorrow.

I put that tarp down, weighing it down with the stones. It covers the area nicely. Lightning flashed all around, and I got soaked. I was fillthy, my shirt was ripped, and I was insane from fatigue.

And you better believe I prayed up there. Prayed not to die from some accident, prayed the roof would stop leaking, prayed we can afford to fix this...

Then came time to test my work. I went back into the attic, crawling on my belly and back out to the narrow confines over the bedroom.

All but two places had stopped dripping (of maybe half a dozen.) I am cautiously optimistic that those places continued to drip (at a much slower pace than before) due to mere saturation. I have pans up there. The worst-affect area will only accommodate a small pan, damn it. But I think it'll be fine.

I am PROUD of my son and how he reported the problem to us, and of Kelli and how she stepped up and helped where she could, doing her best to calm me down. Maybe the fatigue was a blessing, because as badly as I wanted to panic, I never quite could.

I'm going to sleep in that room tonight. I go back and forth, sometimes thinking I won't sleep worth a damn and other times thinking I'm so tired I'll sleep through anything.