Mop It Up

This morning, as I was cleaning my kitchen, I heard what sounded like gas hissing.

We don't have gas appliances (and anyone who has read my post on the fiery fiasco that was my experience with a Bunsen burner knows that this is truly for the best).

I listened closely and realized the sound was coming from the refrigerator. My first thought was that the ice maker was going haywire (friends recently had theirs turn against them and destroy their kitchen floor...). However, when I stood next to the refrigerator, I realized the noise was coming from behind it.

I peeked behind the fridge and didn't see anything amiss, at first.

Our fridge has a water dispenser on the front and because I refuse to drink tap water, I have a water filter hooked up to the water line at the back of the appliance.

The noise was coming from the filter.

You might be asking yourself, "Can a filter make a hissing noise?"

The answer is "No." The filter cannot make a hissing noise. The hose attached the filter, however, can.

I discovered this as I began to pull the fridge away from the wall.

The thin, clear hose connecting the filter to the water source in the wall came flying out of the filter, spraying enough water to put an average garden hose to shame.

This was a problem.

The hose is a good two feet long (perhaps for those households who like their fridges to rest in the middle of their kitchen?). High pressure water spraying through two feet of hose turns that hose into a writhing snake.

This was a bigger problem.

In the few seconds it took for me to yank the fridge completely away from the wall, the hose had twisted and turned and shot water all over the kitchen, the wall, and into the entryway - coating both the hardwood floor and my front door.

I snatched the hose but it kept twisting, spewing cold water and hissing like some demented feline.

Now I was as soaked as the floor.

I wrestled the hose into some semblance of submission and put my thumb over the opening, hoping to slow the water long enough for me to figure out how to stop it.

My plan had serious flaws.

The water didn't stop, it just changed directions. Instead of one continuous stream of water, I now had jets of water arcing in every direction.

I dropped to my knees, hugging that writhing hose to me, and tried to stuff the end back into the filter where it belonged.

It refused to go.

Abandoning all thoughts of fixing it, I followed the hose to the wall and found what I sincerely hoped was the cut off valve.

It was.

The whole incident took less than a minute but my kitchen was a lake, my walls were soaked, my entry way looked like I'd thrown a few buckets of water around and I was dripping from head to toe.

I headed off to grab my mop and my cat decided to do her daily run through the downstairs, the dog hot on her heels.

How do you warn a cat that the floor is slippery?

Besides, she's a cat. It's not like she'd listen anyway.

She hit the lake in the kitchen, flipped into the air, landed on her back and skidded into the wall. The dog hit the puddle, scrambled madly to keep his footing, and shot into the entryway where the front door was kind enough to stop his forward momentum.

It took nearly twenty minutes to mop up the water, change my clothes, and apologize to my pets.

The cat is still mad at me.