Plumbin'; Or Jack the Dripper!

The house is old.
“Hey, I hate to say this,’ she says, “but there’s a bit of water in the basement.” The tenants upstairs are leaving as I am coming home.
There had been an absolute deluge the night before, and there’s nothing like a 124-year-old house for water in the basement after a storm, so I take the information with a grain of salt. I pull out one of my earbuds.“No worries,” I say.“I’ll take a look.’
“Well,” Susie worries, “I’ll be back in a couple hours if you need any help.”
Help?I think.Have they seen me?Do I not give off an air of self-sufficiency? Nay, of common sensical ability?
I jam my earbud back in, go directly to the basement.
It is a reasonable basement, if not a bit dank at the moment; and last year’s cobwebs, having been swept from the exposed ceiling, have been replaced by new ones.
Two hours later, still in the clothes I wore to work, the cement floor, while damp, is cleaner than it’s been since, oh, the last big rain.And yet – why is there still water?I have been listening to a podcast about crime in Merry Old England, and I’m just coming to the realization that there seems to be water leaking from under the dishwasher when –
“PEARL!”
And though in hindsight what I heard was most certainly “PEARL!”, what I understand it to be at the moment is “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”
I leap into the air.
Kurt has come down the stairs.“Don’t you hear that?”
I pull both earbuds out.“I don’t hear anything,” I said.“I’m busy wet-vac-ing all this water…”
He makes a face.“But don’t you hear the water?”
And then I do – the spray of water that has burst from a hose behind the washing machine.
“Well,” I laugh, “that explains why I can’t quite finish up!”I follow the pipes to the shut-off valves, and the spray falls to a steady drip that no amount of tightening will help.
The plumbers have been called.And I am still alive.