Noachian happenings

It was a fine and gently moonlit evening in the tropics of North Queensland. The breeze was blowing in gentle kisses from the south east. The children were bathed, the baby fed, the washing was folded and put away. My wife was out with my daughter for their evening constitutional and I, the competent and loving patriarch, was in the final stages of preparing a bolognese sauce that promised to save me from elimination and let me come back next week to amaze and delight the audience with my chocolate mousse ganoosh.

A bosanova was playing somewhere, just on the edge of hearing.

The laws of a good story aren't going to let this idyll continue. You know that. It seems a shame to spoil the domestic bliss but, as a friend taught me, "dura lex, sed lex" so ...

The first inkling of the coming catastrophe, the ely (if you will), was the overlay of the sound of the gently simmering meal with the tones of delighted splashing - as it were a baby playing in the bath.

The sounds of the bosanova faded to be replaced with a sinister riff on the low strings as I turned to find my nine month old son cavorting happily in the middle of the hallway in about 2cm of water.

This is unusual. Townsville is low lying but we are on the second floor. So, ecce homo - to continue the Latin cliches - and I pulled out the tinny, loaded the shotgun and set off up the corridor river to the find the source of the encroaching moisture.

 Piloting my little craft through what I'm sure were crocodile infested waters, I came to the bathroom where I discovered that my seven year old, on leaving that bath, had helpfully left the shower handset under the waterline and running. The sinister strings now replaced by Paul Dukas while visions of marching broomsticks forced themselves into my mind.

I could, through Herculean effort, staunch the flow of the Nile but I realised that, because of Archimedes (damn those Greeks), I wasn't going to be able to pull out the plug. Competent father that I am, I saw this as a learning opportunity for the culprit and carefully prepared him (stripped off his pyjamas) for his expedition into the abyss.

Unfortunately, the offender had also heard of the Greeks (note to self - stop reading books to my kids) and plunged bodily into the bath, setting of the early warning systems in Sendai and making inhabitants of low lying Pacific islands flee for the coconut trees.

In a musical interlude, a short set of variations on the well known theme "You're a bloody idiot!" followed, along with a threat of a performance of Bach's "Toccata for bottom and dad's right hand".

At this point, it became apparent that Satan - as one of his works and empty promises - had neglected to put a floor drain in the bathroom and so mops were going to be required.

An expedition was mounted to the downstairs laundry to retrieve same but authorities were dismayed when reports came back of torrential rain falling through the floorboards and threatening to engulf neighbouring townships. From this it became apparent that he deluge had seeped from the bathroom, through the walls into neighbouring rooms. Further variations on a group of themes related to those above followed.

Fearing a disaster of Exxonic proportions, temporary bunds in the form of bath towels were installed at strategic points and the SES were called to sand bag the lounge room. As the waves threatened to erode local beaches, warnings were dispatched to local radio stations and the children were sent to check on elderly neighbours. The Moldau gave way to the closing half of The Hall of the Mountain King.

At this point, a knock on the front door reveals the Premier with a declaration of a state of emergency for the Herbert and Lower Burdekin districts, the police investigating reports of the attempted murder of a seven year old and an elderly Jewish man with a robe, a staff and a "told you so" look on his face who, apparently, had come for the dog and a representative sample of the rats that were deserting in an orderly line down the driveway to escape the oncoming wrath.

Then my wife came home to have confirmed for her everything she'd ever heard about leaving dad alone with the kids.