Tuesday 5 May 2009

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.

15 comments:

Amel said...

OH dear...that's quite a morning! I never knew that having salt water fish tank would require such attention 'coz our Dad used to have regular water fish tanks. WOW...I hope this kind of thing will NEVER happen again!!!

Blur Ting said...

It's a nightmare I tell ya!

The Real Mother Hen said...

Uh-oh!

Glad it all worked out well though. Again, you're there for the kids, awesome!

Anonymous said...

OMG...that is quite a dramatic morning! And you were so good to keep it under control and not launch into YK...which is probably what I would have done... LOL... well, hopefully everything was caught in time... how are the fish doing???

k@Ye_ said...

No wonder, my cousin gave up the idea of rearing marine fish! Her fish tank is twice that of YK's size...

Cant imagine if got such problem!

Psst, did Rusty try to mop the floor?

ST said...

Oh my gosh! A nightmare indeed...and how you wished it was only a dream and went back to your sleep again *hug hug* Mum is the best! Happy Mother's Day mummy Blur ^____^

Fresh Fry aka 福星 said...

OMG, i can only give you a major hug over the cyberspace. glad tat nothing died.

*MAJOR HUG*

if it were me, my temper would have gone Volcano level for the next 24 hours and not talk to anyone.....so u're still the best! *WIDE GRIN*

Nick Phillips (15/03/1967 - 04/11/2022) said...

Gee, what a morning you had. Glad things worked out eventually though. I hope your boys realize what an awesome mommy they have.

Blur Ting said...

MH - Oh it was a huge surprise in the morning! I was expecting the worst,like tank breakage or something.

Blur Ting said...

JY - Yah I have learned to keep my temper in check. It doesn't solve problems and will only make matters worse. It helps that my PMS is over too :-)

Blur Ting said...

Kaye - When he first set up the tank, it was meant to be a just-keep-fish-only-maintenance-free type. Then he got carried away and started keeping corals which require very good water condition.

Rusty helped to make lots of wet paw prints all over the house!

Blur Ting said...

ST - Yalor. Nightmare! Happy mother's day to you too!

Blur Ting said...

Fry - The thing is, mothers can never just stand around and watch their kids 'suffer' and not do anything about it. Your mum would do the same for you too.

Blur Ting said...

Nick - I'm sure if the same thing happened to your kid's tank, you and wifey would help him too.

EE said...

TT, your blog grabbed my heart and inspires me to see that, as moms, we are the immovable constants in our children's lives - we create order out of chaos! And hats off, I'd have headed straight to meltdown city if same incident happened!

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