A Mess With a Message: By Small & Simple Things

When I walked into the kitchen on Tuesday morning I smelled water. Odd that it has a smell, but it is distinct. My heart sunk.

I opened the counter under the sink and reached in. Years ago, I put a plastic container underneath the plumbing – on the off chance that there might one day be a leak. It was half full of water. I was relieved, until I looked closer. The reason it was only half full was that the cabinet floor had collapsed, sending the other half of the water cascading to the concrete underneath our kitchen island.

Upon closer examination with my eyes, hands and nose, it became apparent that there had been a slow leak for some time, followed by a recent deluge. It had run underneath the cabinet, soaked the bottom of the drywall on the other side, and run under he floor. The hardwood floor. This was bad.

I cleared everything out and began looking for the leak. The pipes were fine. The disposal was fine. The dishwasher hookups were fine. Eventually, I found the culprit.

The R/O unit. was leaking. The leak wasn’t obvious – it wasn’t a tube or a connector. I pulled it out to get a better look at it. Can’t see it? Look closer:

See that little crack in the collar where the tube inserts? That is it. Tiny drops of water had gradually found their way out and run down into the cabinet. Parts of the cabinetry, drywall, baseboards and flooring were obviously ruined from the slow, relentless seepage.

What a mess.

The restoration guys came out quickly, took out the damage and got things drying. Then the adjustor came out and put a pencil to it to figure out the extent of the damage. It looks small and contained, for the most part, right? Wrong.

What you can’t see is that the 8 square foot section of hardwood is in the corner of the kitchen, which then opens out to the rest of the house in a continuous 1500+ sq. ft. run.

The adjustor said very matter-of-factly, “I doubt we will be able to match the floor, so we will probably need to replace all of it.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah, it happens all the time.”

I thought, “Yikes! That is gonna be expensive.” But I only felt bad for a minute, as I have paid homeowners insurance for 25 years and haven’t ever had a claim. Insurance karma. We can live with new flooring.

Then he said, “We will probably drop a storage pod to get some of the stuff out of the way. Depending on the contractors, we might need to put you up for a few nights somewhere else.”

This is gonna get complicated.

Why? Because of one itty-bitty crack in the RO manifold. Tiny. Although it was barely noticeable, it has done a huge amount of damage, and might actually displace us from our home for a bit.

Now, I’m sure that a huge number of you have had much worse experiences with water damage. I see restoration trucks all over the place, so I am well aware this is not “tragic” by any stretch.

Also, to keep things in proportion, and further the message in the mess, last week a nearby home burst into flames and burned to the ground. (Thankfully no injuries.)

The culprit: A bathroom fan fritzed out.  You know, the vent that you leave on all the time? That one. Apparently it is one, if not THE most common causes of house fires. A tiny fan.

The message in the mess:

Alma taught his son Helaman, “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass…” (Alma 37:6)

We usually look to this scripture and the similar ones found in the Doctrine & Covenants as a reminder that small things can lead to great, and wonderful things. Less discussed is this simple truth: It works just as well in the other direction.

“By small and simple things, great calamities are brought to pass.”  (MMM)

Sadly, evil works along the same process as goodness. Starts small and builds – line upon line.

Elder M. Russell Ballard touched on this issue once as he compared these small things as “termites.”

“A series of seemingly small but incorrect choices can become those little soul-destroying termites that eat away at the foundations of our testimony until, before we are aware, we may be brought near to spiritual and moral destruction.” (link)

It isn’t the “big event” that is gonna get us. It is the series of tiny choices and events that allow the “big event” to ever happen. It makes sense as to why the focus is constantly turned to such small things as sacrament, church attendance, prayer, scripture study, FHE, etc. Those small, good things fight off the small, bad things that can lead to disaster.

Now to find a nice metaphor for mildew.