Four months ago when I moved to Seattle I never thought I would be suffering from a burst pipe in winter. Man. The fire sprinkler pipe in my writer’s room just broke open.

In my writer’s room!

My wife called me frantically proclaiming “a pipe burst, a pipe burst!” I thought of all the things in there, my comfortable papa san chair, the desk, pictures, my laptop. Shit, all the things I need to crank out my fantasies and see the Other Worlds. My heart sank.

I really didn’t  need that kind of set back. I had just put the finishing touches on that room not more than two weeks ago.

Well, they say, this weather is “abnormal.” Everywhere I go, the locals say that so I just, at some time long past, tuned it out.

I thought, well, I’m going to get all that money back from the renter’s insurance. Yup, I’m gonna make sure they pay out big…I drove home, determined.

The water restoration guys were already on the scene and I started taking photos, a habit from my old insurance adjuster days, hoping to find some evidence that would obviate my need to pay the deductible.

When the men cleared out and we were left to the damages, I started looking at what got ruined. It occurred to me that the water was not sewer water. In fact it was regular old tap water. Then I saw that if I wiped down one desk, it would be salvageable. In fact, no lasting damage at all.

Little by little my vision of this grew. This item and that, they could be wiped off and cleaned too. Then came the papa san cushions. I wiped them clean. Then got them in front of the heater.

It went like this, one item after another until I saw something. Not one of them sustained damaged beyond repair. In most cases a simple wipe down would do the trick. My wife showed me my computer. Safe and dry–because it was the first thing she saved.

In the end, nothing got damaged. Nothing but the drywall and who cares about that?

One might assume good luck. The fact that my wife was home made all the difference. And that is all true. And maybe, just maybe, some kind of magic exists that is protecting my writer’s space and my writer’s tools. Some magic is keeping it all safe.

Of course this magic, doesn’t seem to have any regard for my damn writer’s time. Drying papa san cushions and wiping down furniture doesn’t exactly get that manuscript edited, now does it? Forever the pessimist.