Water Water Everywhere

Flush Puppy is desperate to buy a house. It has been her dream for as long as I have known here, which dates back to the child-free days of 1 bedroom apartments, motorcycles and parties on the front steps.

Since her husband, Butter Goats, owns a bar, their cash flow has never been what one would call abundant. Remember that when you stroll down to your neighborhood bar -- the guy behind the counter may seem jaunty and relaxed, but he is working 60 hours a week and making very little money. That's how it works.

But now it seems that they will finally be able to buy a house, if they can find one that doesn't also attract 19 other families willing to bid several thousand dollars over asking. Eventually, if they are patient, they will find a home. It will meet many of their needs, but not all.

And for them I have one bit of advice: DON'T DO IT!

I few minutes ago, I walked downstairs to start a load of laundry. During the past 24 hours, gallons and gallons of rain have thundered down onto San Francisco. Our little slice of heaven did not escape the torrents. Given our home's generally decrepit state, I should not have been surprised to feel the familiar squish of water when I stepped onto the rug in front of the dryer.

And yet, I was.

This happened a few years ago, the last time God decided San Francisco needed a quick cooling-off. That time, we panicked and ripped up the Pergo in the office, replaced it and crossed our fingers that the next time it poured, we would stay dry. And it did, through several light rains.

My response to the puddle was to walk away. I sent an email to Sandra Bullock explaining the situation, adding that I had "not yet addressed" the problem. Then I put on some shoes and walked back downstairs, whispering, "Maybe I imagined it," as I descended.

I didn't imagine it. The puddle was still there. The rug was soaked. I wrung it out as best I could, bringing forth streams of yellowish water. I stepped on the edge of the Pergo. Water shot out onto the floor. Next to the doorway, which last time was the mysterious source of the water, I found a small but very deep puddle.

The water, it seems again, is coming up rather than down. This means that the ground has been soaked, or we have a breach in our foundation, or that the creek that runs somewhere under Glen Park runs under (and occasionally, into) our house, or that there is a sacred Indian burial ground under our house and the spirits have been angered by the rain.

If the last scenario is true, we will have to keep it quiet. If the San Franciscans found out, they would protest us, make us move and then raze our house, never actually involving any Native Americans in the action but instead speaking for them in a paternal way.

One option we may have would be to stuff all of the fur that's lying around our house into whatever crack or hole we find. We seem to have an endless and constantly regenerating supply of that stuff.

I'm not talking about me being a Jewish guy with too much hair on my chest. Shack has mysteriously been dropping yards of fur onto every surface he touches for about the last month, and yet not only is he not getting smaller, he's actually getting bigger. "I wonder if he's losing his puppy fur," S. Bullock has wondered. Or maybe he is transitioning to his winter coat. Whatever the reason, the result is little pieces of fur everywhere. If you touch him, you come away covered with fur. If you sit somewhere he has sat, you get fur. If you pat his back, the fur flies. Literally.

So we could conceivably solve both problems. We simply go out and buy a loom, then weave the loose fur into blankets and stuff them into the puddles downstairs. Shack seems to be pretty absorbant. He goes outside into the rain, comes back in and is dry fairly quickly. I mean, God forbid we call a ... who would we call? A plumber? A cement guy? A tribal elder?

Looks like I picked the wrong week to get laid off.