Renovator Guy, our hero!

The weather was very hot sweet and sticky, even for Houston. The scorching sun beat on our heads as we loaded one truck full after another, moving our large family's home from a two story mammoth to a small apartment and storage unit. I was soaked head to toe in my own perspiration. i caught a glimpse of myself in a window and winced. Sweat poured from me as if i were a walking waterfall. My bones ached, as my muscles flexed to their full capacity lifting boxes, moving furniture and packing away the last few items that didn't have certain homes to go to. My head was throbbing, as the blood pulsed hard in my veins, my eyes bugging as I strained to keep going. Hours passed and it was finally time to go sleep in the apartment before heading back to the house for the next batch of stuff heading to the storage unit. I felt weak form the heat, cursing the thick air as it clung to my hair, clothes and face. I felt the sweet relief of air conditioning in the apartment we had rented for our temporary housing needs. We barely ate that night , all of us spent and quiet. We didn't even have the energy to talk to one another. There was no nostalgia about moving from our home, there was only silence as we individually nursed our wounds.
I was sitting in front of a fan on the "patio", a small slab of concrete separated from the sidewalk by a fence filled with wasps nests and beetles. I had just let out my most recent sigh when Mike came to the sliding glass door and yelled,"Kel, we have a leak in the kitchen!" I got up and began walking to the kitchen when all of sudden I heard the rush of an immense amount of water falling from the ceiling. "Oh my God!" I yelled as water came rushing through the light fixture attached to the kitchen ceiling. I had never seen so much water flood through like that before. I had expected there to be a slow drizzle at most, but this was an incredible gushing mass pouring without any signs of stopping. "Call maintenance!" I yell as I began to gather bowls on the floor to catch any amount I could. "I am already on it!" Mike grabbed the phone and began frantically dialing to find help. Bailing as fast as I could, I made note I was in a losing battle, as inch by inch the water began to rise on the floor. I looked up to the light fixture filled and heavy with water that continued to come at full speed. I grabbed bowls, two at a time, to empty into the kitchen sink, hurrying as fast I could to put them back to be filled to overflowing again. "I can't keep up! Mike is help coming?" I call out as I throw water at the sink. "Yeah, someone is on their way over now." Mike says as he began to bang on the ceiling yelling for them to turn off the water. He had gone upstairs when the leak first occurred to no answer. He banged furiously on their door, screaming for them to turn their water off. They never responded to us.
The renovator guy for the apartment complex finally showed up and saw our new water park in the middle of the kitchen. He flew up the stairs and used the master key to try and get in. When he was finally able to enter the upstairs apartment, he found that the washer hose was out of the drain and all the continuous water from the washer was going through the ceiling into our kitchen via the light fixture.
RG, renovator guy, turned off the water and came back down to our apartment to assess the damage. Water continued to flow from the light but slower, without as much force. I stepped from my bailing position under the light and looked at the ceiling with RG. All of sudden the ceiling fixture came crashing down and shattered full force on the floor. I stood stunned. I had just been standing there bailing. I was looking at the heap of glass and plastic that exploded on impact, when I noticed one of my stainless steel bowl had been crushed, crumpled like a piece of paper under the mess. Immediately RG began to clean up the pieces of glass, plastic, and fluorescent light bits amongst the water. I bent down with him as we began the ordeal of cleaning up a flood that would have impressed Noah. Mike had left to retrieve one of our kids who needed a ride home from work. They arrived back at the apartment and our youngest mouth flew open. "What on earth happened?" Mike and I told her the story as we continued to sweep and mop. RG, got a wet vac and got most of the water immediately. He then threw the light fixture, or what was left of it out the front door to a patch of grass, to be retrieved later.
I am not at all sure what we would have done if not for RG. He really was a hero to Mike and I that night. He helped make sure we were OK and everything was capped off, swept clean and tucked away. We have befriended our RG. He has come for dinner, we laugh and make jokes and wave "hi", when he is out walking his dog or en route to another disaster.
RG is a great guy. He does what he says he will do, and for a renovator guy, that is pretty spectacular. Not all construction guys are good to their word, but RG is. He re-built our ceiling and eventually we got a new light. RG is a friend we will be taking with us to the new house.
For everyday heroes who run the rescue of flood victims, or runaway washers, I thank you for being honorable, decent, kind human beings! The world is a much more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing place to be because of your conscience attitudes.