My Freezer Runneth Over

And not in a good way.

I was going to ask if anything was good running over but then I realized it could be a good thing as long as what we're talking about isn't an appliance.

My first appliance mishap was in 1991 when we bought our first house. When we moved in, the dryer didn't work which I didn't figure out until I tried to dry something. That something was my underwear and I didn't get any dry ones until after we got a new dryer.

In 1999, in the same house, our hot water heater leaked. This problem was compounded by the fact that we were out of town when it happened. When we got home, we stepped into four inches of water. We spent the next few months living in a hotel.

Our next house didn't leak so much that I remember. The dishwasher leaked once - again while we were away - but our nephew was home so the water was pretty well contained.

Our current house is a sieve. It rained in the living room once. Not due to a leak, mind you. It was due to humidity that had somehow built up in the house. A rain cloud formed in the vaulted ceiling and it rained. (It's Seattle, so maybe I'm not the only one.)

We had up-flush. This was due to water pressure that had built up in the sewer system outside the house and caused everything to back up through the toilet dumping the City's finest on my bathroom floor.

My front loading washing machine has been a perpetual problem. Some sort of float switch keeps getting snagged with something from time to time. (Seahawks tickets in someone's pocket, perhaps?) The problem with this is - besides the obvious - if I don't leave the door of the washing machine open, it gets moldy inside (an unpleasant reality of front loading machines). If I leave the front door open, I sometimes come home to water all over my laundry room floor. (These things never happen when I'm actually home.)

Last week, my freezer flooded. It was a float switch, again, that must have frozen. (If it was Seahawks tickets, then something really fishy is going on here.) Again, I was not home.

Until, I was.

I stopped by the house between work and taking one of the kids out to dinner. I don't remember what I stopped for but when I came in the back door I could hear water running. From experience, I knew this could not be good.

At first, I thought it was my dish washer. Hell, I was hoping it was my dishwasher. I had run it earlier that day but I had run it much earlier in the day and logic quickly told me that it couldn't be the dishwasher.

As I moved into the kitchen, it became apparent the sound of running water was coming from my refrigerator - my freezer, actually - but we have an ice maker so that sound happens from time to time. But it didn't click off like it was supposed to.

I thought, It's the arm thingy that tells it when the ice tray is full. It must be stuck. I'll just reach in and flip it up and then that'll be that.

Instinct.

It wasn't the arm thingy. That broke off earlier in the day after the freezer had manufactured more ice than it could handle. But I didn't know that. Not yet. Not before I opened the bottom drawer freezer full of ice cold water that dumped onto my naked feet.

Shocking does not quite describe the feeling.

The only good news was, I was well familiar with where the water shut off valve is located in the house. I shut off the water immediately, mopped everything up, and went out to dinner. Afterwards, I pulled out the fridge and turned off the intake valve so I could turn the main valve back on again.

Now, I had water but no ice.

Which made Jack, very, very sad.