Houses are quite interesting. When they're new and when they're old, they all seem to have their own weirdass character flaws. At least here in Miami, the older areas seem to be much nicer than the newer ones; modern house construction seems to dictate that houses may be no farther apart than about 6 feet, must have no yards, and must all have nonexistent landscaping and sport-utility vehicles installed in the driveways. But, I digress, I suppose.

Once a house has aged quite a bit, the materials and other components thereof start to gradually decay, or just generally go to hell if improperly installed in the first place.

At least in MOST parts of the Miami-Dade County area (heh...), houses are built with mostly functional indoor plumbing.

Dave Barry made an interesting analogy to plumbing in his book, "The Taming Of The Screw", which I will attempt to recite from memory since my little brother destroyed the book:

"Imagine you are riding a bus from (somewhere) to (somewhere else), after singlehandedly consuming an entire six-pack of beer. The bus does not have a bathroom, and the driver refuses to stop until he gets to Elkhart, Illinois, which is 178 miles away. This is how your plumbing feels; after holding water 24 hours a day for several years, it can't help but think about springing a leak."

Well, now I'm quite convinced the Everglades are trying to take back my house and make it once again part of the great River of Grass.

Here, in near total completeness, is a list of parts of my house which now regularly spew water:

• Air conditioning units - Once in a while, the drains plug up in mid-summer, and water comes rushing out in amazing quantity.
• Kitchen cabinets - I have no clue where the hell this water is coming from, but it appears sporadically. At first it was a most deep and unsettling brown; now it's far clearer, but it still makes its presence quite unwelcome.
  
• Master bathroom toilet - The bottom of the tank is unglazed, and allows a slow seepage of water to make its way right through the porous ceramic and onto the floor. Due to a blunder when the terazzo floor was added, the corner behind the toilet is the lowest spot in the house, and water collects there. At one time, a baby frog was found to be living in this area.
• Water heater - For some sick and twisted reason, we leased this from the gas company, and the damn thing has never worked right. When it was first installed, water squirted out of the THERMOSTAT. Then, it went to leaking from somewhere inside the tank and dribbling down through the flue onto the burner, creating cool noises as the water flashed to steam in the flames. Now it'll just settle for dripping constantly from the drain valve.
• Washing machine drain - I can't figure out why, but on about every other load, foam comes spewing forth from this:
  

I'm quite convinced that instead of water, blood will eventually begin to run from these walls... but by then, I'll be out of here anyway. Whee.

Sploosh.