How much "say" the man has
by Brad Pond

My wife and I recently bought our first home in Foxboro. We knew that when we moved in we were going to have to fix up the bathroom and kitchen, two optimistic projects that take up a lot of time. My brother-in-law is in the construction business and was going over a couple of options we had for the second floor bathroom: Option "A," we could leave the existing tub and work around it; or option "B," we could completely gut the entire thing and start from scratch. The moment my brother-in-law finished explaining the options (I was gunning for the money-saving Option A) my nephew seemed to have an urgent question about where he may have left his light sabers. By the time I had directed him toward our living room, I heard a large hammer go right through the bathroom tile...I guess my wife had voted for option "B."

It didn't take long until I got into the swing of things. Ripping down all the old walls in the bathroom was fun and actually got rid of the some tension about undergoing option "B." I was going at it like a mad man with crow bar in one hand and a hammer in the other. I guess I got a bit too carried away, because underneath the foot of debris I started to hear a hissing sound. "Paul, what is that noise?" I asked. His face went to panic and we started to dig as quickly as possible...I had busted a water pipe.

When we finally got to the pipe he stuck his finger on it to stop the dripping, but that was helping very little. He yelled at me to run down in the basement and shut off the water coming in from the street. Being a new homeowner, I tried to remember the inspection stage when the home inspector told me of such a pipe and a shut off valve. I ran down to the basement and found it more quickly than I had expected, turned the valve to "off" and rushed back up the stairs.

When I got to the kitchen my wife asked me in the sweetest, kindest voice possible, "Why is it raining in the kitchen?" The first thought that we had simultaneously was a flashback to a classic movie... "The Money Pit!"