The Wrong Thing

It’s a dark and stormy night.

For real.

Severe thunderstorm warnings decorate my iPhone screen and the sky darkens as we sit down at the dinner table for pizza.

It starts slowly, as it always does. Oversized, scattered drops fall, splattering on the desiccated lawn and patio stones still warm from the afternoon sun. Angry grey clouds swirl overhead. Thunder rumbles in the distance. The air cools a few degrees and our backyard maple tree’s branches swirl as I leave my dinner to bring in the cushions off the deck.

In between the bites of melted cheese smeared with tomato sauce the four year old is picking off her pizza, she pipes up with a vaguely British lilt: “Is there going to be a power cut?”

(Thank you, Peppa.)

“I don’t know,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders and taking a bite of my own pizza. “Probably not.”

The power doesn’t go out very often around here but, despite my nonchalance, the three little people in my house are concerned. But somewhere between anxious and excited, the gleam in their eyes and their sideways glances at each other betray a plan.

The storm is stronger now. The sun hasn’t set but the streetlights take their cue and glow anyway. Lightning streaks across the sky, followed by sharp claps of thunder. The neighbourhood trees sway, loose leaves flying through the air. And then the sky opens, bearing down on us with the intensity of the four year set free with the garden hose.  

The lights flicker once and then again.

Chewing on the last of our pizza crusts, we rush to the front window to watch the deluge and can barely see across the street. Sheets of rain fall, sideways, overflowing gutters and pooling around storm drains. Someone makes a comment about how happy the garden must be. Someone else wants to know if they can still watch Netflix in a power outage.

I leave the little people at the window to wipe blobs of tomato sauce off the table and remember I’ve had wet clothes sitting in the washing machine for most of the afternoon. The girls lose interest in the rain and pull chairs up to the cupboards where I store the flashlights (obviously not out of reach as I had hoped).

They head upstairs, armed with flashlights and cautious optimism. Something elaborate involving flashlights and blanket forts and power outage preparation is about to unfold. I’m not sure if it’s play therapy or sisterly cooperation or both but I rinse the remnants of dinner out of the dishcloth and allow it.

Table wiped and power still on, I move to put the laundry in the dryer before it starts to smell like a wet dog (this time at least).

I think musty laundry is the worst I will find downstairs. But I am wrong. Very wrong.

On the other side of the window, the rain patters against the glass and I can see across the street again. Our maple tree’s sway is gentle now and the only thunder I hear is a low rumble in the distance.

In the basement, a cold puddle greets me and the carpet squishes between my toes. 

I take a deep breath. “Can you go get Daddy and tell him there’s water in the basement?” I ask the child who has abandoned the power outage fort and followed me downstairs. While I wait for backup, I toss the first casualty of the leak, a dripping art paper pad, into the trash and sidestep another puddle.

Everyone congregates around the very wet corner of the basement now. Someone wants to know if we’ll have to move. I say no. Someone wants to know if the power will go out too. No, again. Someone else wants to know if movie night is cancelled. Definitely, no.

While we survey the damage downstairs, the girls put on their pajamas and collect their sleeping bags for movie night, leaving a blanket fort in my bedroom, flashlights probably still glowing, waiting for the power outage that never came.

Outside, the sidewalk loses its rain covered sheen and the skies clear. Inside, we toss strips of carpet, tear down sections of drywall, and shove the toys and the furniture into the dry half of the basement. The girls are cocooned in sleeping bags and enjoying Cheetos and Netflix. (Their) crisis averted.

I consider how we might have had enough time to keep things dry if we’d gone downstairs before it started to rain. We could’ve been rolling up carpets and putting towels down in all the right places. I could’ve tasked the girls with moving toys to the dry half of the basement instead of preparing for a power outage.

If only we’d known that somehow this storm would be different than the dozens of storms our basement has weathered in the years since we started filling it with toys and furniture.

If only we hadn’t been preparing for the wrong thing.

Then, I consider the absurdity of preparing for a leak in a basement that’s never leaked before.

I consider the benefits of both sister blanket forts and my blissful ignorance of the water inching across my basement floor as we covered the table in tomato sauce.

I consider how, as we begin a new school year, I have no doubt we’re preparing for both the right things and the wrong things, steeling ourselves against obstacles we’ll never face and oblivious about some of the ones we will. Blankets and flashlights in hand, I’m ok with that. Life is hard enough without precautionary basement renovations.