“That was almost a disaster!!”

I had a friend that discovered a leaky pipe in the storage closet in their basement.

So, he shut off the main water valve and grabbed his “wanna be” tool box and went to battle. He called it a “wanna be” tool box because it only had a hammer, a couple screw drivers and some vice grips (sounds like mine lol).

He first tried to use the vice grips to undo the old copper fitting to no avail. He then resorted to hammering and screwdrivers as a futile wedge to try to loosen up the stubborn pipe fitting with increasing frustration. After a demoralizing loss, he decides that he is gonna get the win today because he is not a loser and he will need a shower too badly after this to go without water. By this time, his wife had taken the kids to the store and then to his in laws so they could get a bath for school the next day. Amidst time running out on the day and patience running thin, he decided to pull out all the stops and borrow the neighbors blow torch to cut the incorrigible fitting.

He is now feeling pretty good about his chances and is internally looking forward to getting revenge on the pipe that has humbled him and caused him to waste the day in a losing effort.

With an evil grin and anticipated satisfaction he crawls back into the crowded crawl space in the basement and fires up the tool of victory. He dials in the flame and goes to work expecting to make the cut in just a minute but it isn’t quite getting the job done so he turns up the heat (no pun intended.)

Victory was imminent. Any second now he would be ready to finish the repair and get back to watching football.

Things seemed to be progressing after he got the flame dialed in, just a few more seconds and BAM!!! GOT IT!  Glory to God, Jesus won the victory!

He was so glad to be going to get the new pipe and fittings out of the truck that he didn’t think much of the smokey smell since he did just cut metal with fire. When he got back from his truck the 2×4 behind the pipe was on fire! Instinctively, he ran upstairs to get the biggest container of water he could find but it wasn’t near enough to put out the fire by the time he got back downstairs. He ran to get his phone to call 911 but it was too late to be of consequence.

About that time, his wife arrives back home with the kids to find her house a smoking pile of ashes. She gets out of the car, frantic and in tears and goes straight for her husband who pulls her close to comfort her. After giving her a moment to cry on his chest, he said to her, “oh honey honey honey, Thank God, sweetie that was almost a disaster!!”

Confused, she Took a step back and looked at him in disbelief and almost a disaster I don’t house is gone said, “What do you mean, almost a disaster!!??! Our house is gone!!”

“Yeah, that was sooo close,” he replied, “I mean, I finally got that pipe off but I ALMOST had to tell someone I didn’t know what I was doing and ask for help!!”