why you should always listen to your gut

I have a penchant for being freakishly intuitive. Over the years I’ve learned to listen to my gut, because most of the time, it knows what it’s talking about. Sometimes, though, I pooh-pooh it and refuse to listen to it. And usually I end up regretting this decision. The gut knows best, people!

Yesterday was one such instance of this. There was a destructive storm barreling up the East coast, after causing substantial damage in the South. Lightning, large hail, tornadoes, flooding rains, and strong winds were all distinct possibilities in this area. As the storm raged outside my office, my gut was telling me that my apartment would flood again, even though I’d been careful to clear all leaves away from the drain outside my back door (this is the same drain that caused my apartment to flood a few years ago). I kept thinking that I should leave work early and go home and check on it, but then I accused myself of being paranoid and told myself everything would be fine. Except it wasn’t. I got home and was halfway across my bedroom when I started hearing the squishing noises. The flooding affected the bulk of my living room, all of my bathroom, and half of my bedroom. There wasn’t standing water, but there was enough where, when I stepped on the carpet, water pooled up around my feet. Much cursing ensued.

I called my landlord and he came over with a wet vac. He vacuumed the bulk of the water, but the carpet is still damp. So, like, if I kneel down, the knee of my pants will be wet when I get back up, and I have to wear slippers to keep my feet dry. Today he is coming over with an industrial drying fan which will hopefully work. I’ve got the raging toxic mold paranoia, yo! I ran my two fans all night long and I also ran my dehumidifier this morning. I left the fans running when I went to work, but wouldn’t leave the dehumidifier running. I’ll run it again when I get home from work. My landlord is also going to work on the gutters and fix the drain to make sure this (hopefully) doesn’t happen again.

I’m beleaguered by this whole thing (especially since I already have my plate full with a heavy freelancing load and imminent car repairs), yet I’m also grateful, because it could’ve been so much worse. This same storm killed 12 people, injured others, and destroyed who knows how many homes. My only problem was flooding, and it was far from Katrina proportions. I got off lucky. There are water marks on some of my furniture and some of my possessions was ruined, but thankfully they were all very minor items (like one of my freelancing style manuals and one of the framed postcards I’ve had since high school).

Now, if only I could turn off my fears about toxic mold!!!



song heard most recently before posting: There is a Light That Never Goes Out—The Smiths