Unplug - a lesson for more than meditation

Sometimes everything in my life comes together—and sometimes I have to coax it into place like a scared dog. 

I was in the shower enjoying my hot water therapy session Thursday night when I stopped scrubbing and opened my eyes as a sudden and impending doom washed my peace and tranquility down the drain with the soapsuds.

I hadn’t heard the sump pump (which at my house collects all the grey water in a reservoir in the basement and pumps it out to my septic tank) go off at all in the 15 minutes I’d been under the showerhead. As a rule during one of my muscle soaking zens, the sump goes off twice.

In fact I hadn’t remembered hearing it go off for about three days—through my evening showers and those of Daughter #3 who takes marathoners that last longer than anyone I have ever known. There’d also been at least two “super loads” of laundry and another one for my bedroom comforter after the cat puked on it, and the daily dishwashing sessions—all that water going nowhere.

I also recalled coming home from work earlier that day to find my cats sitting in a row on the top step of the staircase to the basement—eyes big as saucers. It was an usual for “they who do not get along” to be sharing space like that. Then a vision of why—a flooded basement of cat food dishes and litter boxes floating alongside all the other unused household junk I had stashed down there.

I leapt out of the shower like a bat out of a “Meatloaf” album and ran buck naked to the basement tripping over the cats, who caught sight of my greek goddess figure and fled fearing for their lives.

I threw open the reservoir lid to discover a brimming tank of gruesome grey water threatening the boundary line between a dry basement and my worse nightmare.

Without thinking I jammed my entire arm down into the liquid gruel to locate the sump float, and while looking up to avoid looking down into the abyss, did I see that at the ceiling I hadn’t unplugged electricity to the pump.

I yanked my arm out of the water quicker than a lightening fast draw by “Billy the Kid,” (as if it would have made a difference had there been a short.)

Suddenly in rushed a memory from my childhood and my Grandpa Joe Drennan telling us about his dairy cattle, back in the day, being electrocuted in the barn when, secured in the stanchions, one of them took a drink of water and all of them succumbed to a electrical short in the system.

Thankfully I’m still here to ponder how lucky I am to be writing this and that my “G-man” can not only turn a mean pipe wrench, but more importantly—and gratefully so—brings rescue, calm and wise solutions to a somewhat “Little Miss Stressed Out.”  

Thinking of you. :)