Just when you think things are under control

I sat down on the couch last night, feeling very satisfied. I had mowed the lawns, weeded the garden, washed the floors, vacuumed, and even cleaned the second story windows inside and out. My to-do list was under control and my house was sparkling. I wanted to rest and enjoy the quiet of a late August evening when I heard a sudden and loud crack. I checked the laundry room to see if something had fallen off the dryer while spinning. No. I thought I heard water running so I checked the kitchen. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I looked over to the neighbors' to see if their above-ground pool had been over-filled. Nope.

The sound of water became louder. I ran to the upstairs bathroom and discovered inches of water pooling on to the floor and heading to the hallway carpet. I turned off the toilet tap, and the water still ran. I threw every towel that I could find onto the bathroom floor to sop up the water, still not knowing the source.

Once I was convinced that the towels were absorbing the water, I paused to look for the leak. The water was dripping from the toilet's tank. A crack ran the length of the tank and all of the water had emptied. I was grateful that I was home when the tank cracked and thought to myself, at least the water is confined to the upstairs bathroom.

I was wrong. When I went back into the kitchen, water was leaking into the lighting fixture and dripping onto the laminate floor. More towels and paper towels into action. I turned off the light and very carefully lifted the fixture off the ceiling and poured the accumulated water into the drain. Finally, I placed a bowl on the floor to catch the last drizzles of water coming from the ceiling.

Still grateful that I was home, I decided that there was nothing more to do but I wondered how a toilet tank cracks spontaneously, and especially cracks just when I was feeling that there was nothing left to fix or clean. I think the lesson is that there is always more and there is always less and what is more and less is out of our control.