I happened to have a birthday party to go to this Saturday, by myself! A group of us ladies who used to work in the same office building have remained friends over the last 15 years and one of them was turning 60 so we had a brunch planned at my ex-boss’s house. Well my ex-boss had the power go out at her house for 2 hours due to the rain we got on. So the brunch turned into a lunch. While we were eating lunch her refrigerator water line burst and there was water running all over the place. I went to turn the water off at the wall and the knob broke off in my hand. My ex-boss had no clue where her main water shut-off was, so 3 of the ladies went outside, remember it’s raining, and were lucky enough to find it and turn it off.

On top of all of this fun, my oldest daughter was trying to plan to go to one of her friend’s house on Saturday as well. If you have ever seen two teens try to make plans you know this is a comedy of errors all in itself but my daughter had to throw in her dad which made it just that more complicated! After several phone calls to me, I guess Dad couldn’t figure it out either, they went over to her friend’s house. They only stayed there for about an hour when the girl’s mother drove them over to another girl’s house. I did not know this second girl or her parents but I was assured by the first girl’s mother that she knew them and they were fine.

Remember I am still at the birthday party helping with a now flooded kitchen trying to sort out the whereabouts of my 16 year old daughter and it’s raining outside!

We finished up our lunch and had coffee and cake at the party. It was about 3 in the afternoon when I decided to go ahead and leave. I was going to go pick-up my daughter at girl number 2’s house and then go home.

Well that was the original plan! Remember I said it was raining? Well it was now pouring rain! I have this rule that if while I’m driving it’s raining to hard for me to see I pull over. Well, I got about halfway home and I had to pull over in a drugstore parking lot! Within 15 minutes of me sitting in the parking lot the street was totally flooded! We got 10 inches of rain  about an hour and a half!

I called my husband and he told me to just stay put until the water went down. He was stranded along with my youngest daughter at a local Mexican restaurant. Poor things!

I called my oldest daughter to let her know that I was stranded and to find out where girl number 2 lived. Girl number 2 lives right next to a main creek which was now over it’s banks. Her subdivision was totally flooded and there was a big tree down blocking the main road. My oldest daughter ended up spending the night at girl number 2’s house. Remember, I have never met her or her parents!

At 7 o’clock that night I finally made it home! What should have been a 30 minute trip turned into 4 hours!

So, what did I learn this weekend? It all pretty much boils down to one thing:  “If Mom tries to do anything by herself for once, the Flood Gates will open up and try to drown her!”