okra: Water-logged

So, um, our basement is flooding. We have a finished basement, so it super sucks. Water is pouring in the windows. I heard something like a crash downstairs and I went down to discover water rushing in. I called for my boyfriend to come downstairs. When he came down, he saw Mao staring at the water. Further investigation revealed Luca, terrified and stranded atop the litter box. She was very glad to be rescued. Upstairs, I held poor damp luca; she was very relieved and started purring. Mr. Mister, completely oblivious to the situation, walked down the stairs. When he got to the last step, he stopped, meowed, and quickly went back upstairs. This whole thing was so weird. We've never had water in our basement before. We were confident enough to have our office down there. A little waterfall was cascading down over the printer. At the time, I was trying to print my Wilco tickets. The red printer light blinked pitifully. My dad is making a special trip to help us. Will we ever be glad to see him; we have no idea what to do, other than poke at the drain and make faces at the mucky water. At least we aren't perched on the litter box. We thought about getting out the wet-vac, but my dad had a good point: where would we put the vacuumed water? We had some ideas. Campus mail. Driving it out to the woods and releasing it. Yeah. We're just waiting for him to get here.

Ironically, when the storm started, the chickens were out there playing in the rain. It started raining much harder. Frieda and Lola ran under a bush, but Sparky was still running around; she seemed to be enjoying herself despite the crashing thunder. Finally, I was too worried about them and ran out there to shoo them into their house. I picked up Frieda and tucked her into my jacket. She seemed grateful for the rescue. I put her in the coop and she was content. Sparky, though, just ran back out into the rain. I shut the gate to the pen and eventually she got tired of being out there alone and went inside with the others.