Last Thursday morning I had a very important client appointment with our fearless YMC leader Erica Ehm. With a 10:30am meeting time set, I asked my hubby Chris (we’re not married, so I don’t know what to call him, maybe baby-daddy?) to take our son Connor for a walk before our nanny arrived later in the morning. At 9:30am I jumped in the shower, but before I had a chance to warm up, I noticed water pooling around the toilet nearby. I promptly turned off the taps and went to investigate.
As soon as the shower noise stopped, another noise filled its place. This time it sounded like gushing water, but it was coming from downstairs. I threw on a towel and ran down to my newly renovated kitchen to see what looked like a firehose of liquid storming through the pot lights. Not being a plumber, I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. However, being a techie, I quickly noticed that our charging station was positioned directly below this outpouring of H20.
My MacBook Air, landline phone, Android-based cellphone, iPod, and baby monitor were subject to an uninvited shower. I threw down my towel, probably giving my neighbours a nice little show in front of our floor-to-ceiling patio windows, and tried desperately to dry my baby (um, I mean my laptop). Oh, and did I mention we have heated floors in the kitchen and bathrooms? (At this point I’m thinking electrocution is in my future.)
Yes, I needed reinforcement, so I called Chris to come home ASAP. Five minutes later he arrived on the scene. As I’m sure you can imagine, Connor didn’t like all of this commotion so he started to cry, well, scream. I would have cried too, but all I could do was laugh (was this really happening?). Not knowing what to do next, I did what any modern-day woman would do. I went to Twitter for help.
Out of all of the recommendations, there was one insane enough to try. (Not only did my tweeting friends give this advice, but Chris also agreed.) The best low-tech remedy for high-tech water damage was…drum roll…soaking victimized devices in dry rice (more on this here). I was willing to try anything.
Now at this point I was running late for my meeting, so I accepted that a 30-second shower was good enough and reasoned that my leftover make-up from the TV show I host on Wednesday nights would have to do for the day. I left poor Chris and Connor in a mess, knowing that this plumbing/tech disaster was in good hands.
Amazingly, I was only about 15 minutes late for the meeting, which went very well (more on this later). Eight hours later, my laptop was working, and the only device that didn’t withstand the “spill” was the Android-based cellphone (which I was testing, and loving, sorry Motorola!).
As for our kitchen and bathroom, everything is looking pretty good, but we have a more detailed inspection planned this week. Now I know that I should have been more worried about our house than my technology, but it’s safe to say that I always have gadgets on my mind. And, thx to a little rice casserole, this story has a happy high-tech ending.
Printer-friendly version