I Shall Go Directly To Bed!

It wasn't my day! Well technically, it wasn't my night. The day was just fine. Everything was just fine until...

I tried to change the UV bulb on the external fish tank filter, then my day somehow took a dramatic turn for the worse, until I hit the very very bottom, when I finally gave up and decided that there was only one thing to do—I shall go directly to bed, and stay there, until whatever the f*uck this was had passed. Yes I know it's a terribly rambling sentence, but it was that kind of a night.




So I got a new UV bulb for the filter to replace the old dead one that I had never had to change before. Upon a not-so-close inspection of the filter, I decided (terrible decision!) that I would just risk it, and open up the filter as is, not seeing any real stopping mechanism, other then unplugging the filter, which I did. Bad decision. Really bad decision. As soon as I opened it, gallons of water came out of the filter and I couldn't stop it no matter what I do! Then I realized that it was still fully functioning as a filter, even though the power was off. Therefore, it literally was taking the water from the 55-gallon tank and, well, casually dumping them onto my floor. I had this horrified vision of water seeping through the floor and onto the ceiling in the basement, dripping at first, then slowly turn into a giant pour, onto the kids, and their computers... Panicking, I yelled for the kids to come rescue me, that I had done something terribly bad, that the house will be collapsing if they don't come up at once! They rushed up, and... started to laugh...

1/5 of my tank was now empty. You do the math. And they are laughing!

Fast forward a half-hour, and a dozen towels and a wet vac later... Taking a careful, but somewhat relieved breath, I decided (I should have learned my lesson by now that decisions were not my forte tonight, but no...) that I would go ahead and clean the filter while I had it all apart, and that I would switch the filter around with the salt water tank filter. This, of course, involved emptying out the hang-on-the-back filter that was on the salt tank. You see where this was going, right? Yep, I managed to make my second mess of the night. The plug/motor part of the filter fell out, and out poured all the water that was in the reservoir. At least it was just that. I comforted myself.

Another several towels later, I embarked on the task of refilling both of the tanks. The mess followed along: I left the 5-gallon bucket to fill with tap water (cuz it takes forever to fill!), and went to clean up other parts of the family room that was by now disrupted by the flood, and... forgot about the bucket, until I heard splashes! From the kitchen counter onto the floor. Rushing back into the kitchen, I tried to pour out some of the overflowing water, managed to knock over the remaining open bottle of diet coke sitting on the counter, without its lid screwed back on, an earlier bad decision of mine, clearly. By now, even I was laughing. Maybe out of hysteria, but still. I gave myself credit for being able to laugh about it...

Taking the really full and really heavy bucket back to the tank, I started to pour the treated water back into the tank. Normally, I'm pretty good with this, but apparently not tonight. Water flowed over the back half of the glass canopy, and... out it went onto the wall and hit the floor, again. And I hadn't secured the filter pipe enough to the inside of the tank, so the tube floated away leisurely, to the bottom of the tank.

That, was when I decided (my first good decision of the night!) that it was time to go to bed. IMMEDIATELY.