April 12th, 2018:

	What a night.  I'd planned on stopping by Canadian Tire for a tube 
of marine grease on my way home from work, and when I parked the car and 
grabbed my phone, I saw that my wife had called me ten times.

It's unusual for her to phone me (she normally just texts), so I knew this 
was important.  As I was about to check my voicemail, I saw a text that 
read "PLEASE COME STRAIGHT HOME MAJOR WATER LEAK WATER EVERYWHERE".  
Rather than waste time phoning her back, I got back in the car and sped 
off home.  Five minutes later, I pulled up and she met me at the door in 
a panicked state.

"I have an emergency plumber on the way", she exclaimed.  I asked her 
where the leak was, and she said she wasn't sure, somewhere downstairs.  
Sure enough, as I got to the top of the stairs, I could hear it.  I ran 
downstairs and followed the sound to the spare bathroom.  A jet of water 
was spraying sideways from the back of the toilet.  I reached in and 
turned the toilet valve off, and the geyser ceased.

"Oh my God", my wife exclaimed, "how did you get it to stop?"

"Turned the valve off," I answered.  She said she felt dumb for not 
thinking of that, and I told her not to feel bad.  She's never had to deal 
with anything like this, and in her panicked state she wasn't thinking 
clearly.  So, I showed her where the valve is in case anything like this 
happens again.

I also showed her where the valve is on the water main, just in case she 
has cause to shut the water off to the entire house.  I admit I had to 
look for this myself, as we had our water meter replaced last year, and 
the installer moved the location of the valve.

Thankfully, the water had only been shooting out for twenty minutes, and 
damage was minimal.  99% of the water went down the floor drain, and 
damage was limited to the cheap indoor/outdoor carpet the previous owners 
had installed.  Not a big deal, as we were going to replace it this year 
anyway.  The cat's litterbox was drenched, too, but was thankfully empty 
as my wife had cleaned it earlier.  The (clean) litter did leave a Hell of 
a mess to clean up, but given the circumstances I'm thankful there wasn't 
more damage.

The plumber showed up shortly after and traced the fault to the steel flex 
line that runs from the water line to the toilet.  The previous owners 
cross-threaded the hose where it screws onto the float valve, and over 
time the pressure weakened the nylon swivel nut.  $190 later, we were 
fixed.  $99 for the emergency call, $10 for the new flex line, and the 
rest was labour and tax.  Kind of a piss-off, as I can do the work myself, 
but it saved me having to run to the hardware store and missing my dinner.

It took an hour to clean the place up, to wipe down the wood paneling, rip 
out the old carpet, and mop up the excess water, but it appears we're back 
to normal.  The plumber did recommend we call Drain Doctor or Roto-Rooter 
as he suspected we have roots in our line.  I've seen both companies in 
our neighbourhood quite often, so I guess it's our turn...

Never did make it to Canadian Tire last night.  Hoping to get there today 
or tomorrow, as I want to start getting my bikes ready for the season.