Drama mama

I woke up to another wet stormy morning and wished I could stay in bed. Since it's a school day, I dragged myself out of bed and walked into the dark living room. Funny, why was the floor wet?

O.M.G! The entire living room was flooded. I checked the balcony doors. They were closed. Then I realised I was stepping on salt water from YK's marine tank. I dashed into his room. "Wake up! Something's wrong with your tank. Water is leaking out!"

Apparently the hose had come loose. Instead of pumping water into the sump tank, it was dispensing water into my living room. This must have gone on for hours because the rugs in living room were soaked. Water was even found in the kitchen, toilet and outside the main door!

If you have never dealt with salt water before, you have no idea how destructive it is. It leaves a sticky residue if you don't clean up properly. Armed with rugs and the fluffiest towels we can get, we soaked up buckets of water on the floor.

Obviously YK was feeling sorry and guilty about the whole incident. I bit my tongue and suppressed the urge to launch into a lecture. Not his fault really and no point crying over spilt milk. We just focused on cleaning up the mess. We must have mopped the floor 5 times after that just to get rid of the sticky feeling. By now, I was more than wide awake.

It didn't end there of course. Now the pump had stopped running because the water level became too low. We needed at least 4 bags of salt water. YK had classes at 9am and the fish farm doesn't open until 8.30am. So guess who became the volunteer?

It's mum to the rescue again. After dropping him off at the train station and SK in school, I drove to the farm. This morning's traffic was horrendous because of the many accidents. I got home, hungry and grouchy, and attended to the important task at hand.

Maintaining a marine tank can be really troublesome. YK wrote me two pages of instructions, including illustrations in case I became too 'blur'. Firstly, pour water into sump tank until it reaches the indicated level. Next, turn on pump (he drew a row of switches and coloured the one to turn on). Observe for 5 minutes. Then turn on chiller. Observe some more. Turn on protein skimmer. Check that it is working properly. Adjust the pipe if necessary. See if all fishes and corals are ok.

Oh boy. I had never been so attentive all my life. I sent him a message to say everything's under control. Then I threw all the soaked rugs in the washer, rolled up the big one to bring to the cleaners and double check to see if all the tank equipment are really working and water is going in the right receptacles instead of my floor.

Then I realised that poor Rusty was still waiting for his morning walk. Sigh, it's just another day in the life of Blur Ting.