The timing was perfect.

Because if it had happened at, oh, let's say 6:00 pm today, Eric probably would have arrived home to find me in a pile on a flooded kitchen floor crying. I've generally found that

Emily + pregnancy hormones + frustration ≠ a good time

Last night I was in the kitchen washing my hands at one of the two sinks in there. The second sink had my 8-quart stock pot and 5-quart dutch oven each full of water and soaking after making salsa and sweet pickles yesterday afternoon. Just as I was reaching for the towel to dry my hands off, I heard a loud crash behind me, followed by the sound of flowing water. I quickly turned around to see a large hole in the countertop where my sink used to be.

I went rushing over to see what happened. Halfway there, my bare feet were splashing through water. Lots and lots of water. I got to the sink area, reached through the hole in my countertop, and grabbed my two Calphalon pots from the fallen, sideways sink - they had maybe four cups of water left between the two of them.

In case you were wondering, 12 quarts of water covers A LOT of surface area.

Standing there in shock and disbelief in an expanding pool of water, my first instinct was to cry. Because that's such a logical reaction. But then I remembered my sweet, helpful, rational, (not pregnant) husband was at home. So I called out across the apartment, "Um, Sweetie . . . could you please come help me in the kitchen . . . quickly"

He had heard something fall. And then when I asked for his help, he quickly assumed I had dropped the 6 pints of salsa we had made while trying to put them in the freezer. You can imagine his relief when he came in the kitchen and just found water on the floor. (As opposed to salsa splashed on every surface within a 20' radius . . .)

What he wasn't so excited to see was this:

Of course, this wasn't exactly the first image he saw. These pictures were taken after we had everything cleaned up and the sink/garbage disposal moved into an upright position. They actually fell more sideways and were laying across everything stored under the kitchen sink.Trying to figure out how the heck a sink spontaneously falls, we did a little investigating and discovered that our under-mounted sink, with the biggest, heaviest garbage disposal you've ever seen (we're talking like, seriously, over 30 pounds . . . maybe over 40) attached to it, had absolutely no support holding it up. Whatever genius installed the sink just sort of plastered it to the bottom of the countertop. Seriously, I have no idea how it lasted as long as it did!

The one redeeming factor about the whole thing: a flexible drain pipe. A shattered pvc sewage line would create a whole new set of problems!

See how our other kitchen sink (below) has some braces under it? That seems like it might have been a good idea for the sink supporting the gigantic hunk of steel (aka the garbage disposal.)


So today's plans now include dealing with the apartment owner's representative and getting someone out here to fix my sink. I could end up curled up in a ball on the floor crying still . . . especially if they send me my same little plumber friend from last time. Oh, and have I mentioned we have company coming into town on Wednesday? Yeah, maybe the timing wasn't so perfect.