The Pitter-Patter of...

... ah, that unmistakable sound. I guess you can say it has been heard a time or two around our place. This afternoon, I wondered if I was dreaming. Could it be? Yes! There could be no doubt. Once again, I was hearing, that old familiar sound of water, leaking down through the kitchen ceiling, over the top of and around the range-hood microwave, and pitter-pattering onto the stove and finally the floor. That could mean only one thing. Someone, upstairs in the bathroom, had filled the bathtub too full, and their subsequent aquatic endeavors were causing an overflow situation.

Up the stairs I ran. I rapped on the locked bathroom door. No answer. I can hear the bathtub water running. I am now pounding on the bathroom door. No answer. This is not good, I think to myself. Someone is in there, incapacitated, or worse, and the water is over-topping the bathtub. You need to break down the door, I say, almost out loud, to myself. I don't want to break down this door, I answer myself. I take approximately 34/100ths of one second looking around for the funny little thing you put in the hole of the door knob to get it open that I had not seen for years.

I kick the door. My foot made a hole in the door but it did not open. How do the cops on TV do this? I threw my shoulder into the door. Goodbye, door frame. Sayonara, bathroom door. It's open!

I whirl around to where the tub is, wondering who was unconscious, drowned, hurt, incapacitated, or some combination thereof. The tub is full to overflowing, and the faucet is going full blast.

The next thing I see is my youngest son's swimming-goggled head and eyes rising resolutely and nobly to the surface. He was fine. He hadn't heard my pounding on the door, because he was under the water pretending to be a Los-Angeles class nuclear submarine. Or something.

Ah. parenthood, that estate of non-stop, 7x24x365, bone-wearying labor, punctuated by brief, ephemeral interludes of sheer terror.

Just kidding. I would't have it any other way. :-)

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