Looking Out My Back Door

Now that Hurricane Irene has moved on, I'm starting to assess the damage to my Rye Brook home, which is mostly confined to the playroom. There's a broken window. A gusty, romantic breeze keeps ripping around. And the carpeting, soaked, is as covered with grass, dirt and heather as The North Yorkshire Moors. So I better start cleaning up. Either that, or get a girl in here and start performing scenes from "Wuthering Heights."

Of course, it could have been worse. 

All Saturday night and through Sunday, I was at my back door, suctioning up water with my Wet Vac. I can't imagine how much liquid it was, but I think we're talking enough to keep a beer manufacturer going for several weeks. Of course, the water was dank, foetid and filled with disgusting little crawling things. Still, if you were making Miller Genuine Draft Light, you'd be halfway home.

But about the back door.

Like most houses, mine has one major design flaw. The back door and its adjoining stairs and drain do their job at keeping water out, but poorly, and at a very sluggish rate. In other words, if these inanimate objects were in a union, you'd call it a 'work slowdown.'

Contrarily, anytime there's a real rainstorm, and accumulations of more than one cubit, the water squeezes through the bottom of the door and rushes into the playroom with all the alarming exuberance of Steven Tyler. 

As you can imagine, this was the never-ending story on Sunday. The water table was already ridiculously high from previous days of rain. And, with the prediction of 10 more inches, I wasn't sure if I should waterproof the door or start collecting two of every sort of animal.

Instead, I got out the Wet Vac. 

This marvelous machine is like a vacuum cleaner, except it works on water. It sucks it up pretty reliably, then when its canister is full, you simply dump this scuzzy stuff out and start again. But, on a bad day, like Sunday, there's no way to stay on top of things. The water rate was so intense and speedy, that while I was dumping out the current batch, a new amount, roughly the size of Saranac Lake, had amassed at my feet. 

This is how it went.

I vacuumed up two gallons of water, then quickly pulled the top off the machine, ran over to the sink and threw it out, ready to suck up some more. But within 45 minutes, I was up to my ankles in the stuff. The faster I moved, it seemed, the worse the flood got. If you've ever seen Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," you know the basic premise. Except Mickey, as far as I know, doesn't drop F-bombs like he's just backed into a paper shredder.

Plus, once the water gets past you, it makes its way into the next available room. In this case, the playroom, which also happens to be the place where my dog hangs out. And when the water came pouring in, he reacted in the typically intrepid fashion of the canine. First, he barked at the water to scare it off. And when that didn't work, he ran upstairs to find a book on military strategy.

Two hours of this and I was ready to throw in the towel. Except it would've been sucked into this vortex of water and been drowned.

After several hours, the rain abated and I sucked up and poured out the last batch of water, so poisonous, it probably contained a new strain of the polio virus. I disinfected the Wet Vac interior, then the laundry room and playroom floors. Once the End-of-Days swirl of water was gone, Happy, my Golden, magically reappeared. I guess he'd found what he needed in my book on counter-terrorism. And, satisfied, came down to hang out. 

Besides, there were new attractions.

The rain had stopped and there was now a completely different phenomenon. The wind was blowing and the sky was raining branches. For most of us, this would seem to be instant death. To Happy, it was a major improvement. He saw all this crap on the lawn as an excuse for an endless game of fetch. So out we went to play. Even if it sounded like an angry tribe was firing arrows into the house.

Soon enough, I'd tired the dog out and brought him back in for a nap.

Still, Hap proved the old adage once again. When it comes to storms, they are pretty much like everything else in this world. It all depends on how you look at them.

Peter Gerstenzang is an award-winning humorist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Spin, The Saturday Evening Post and several other national publications.