extension cord: My personal favorite. Someone’s elderly mother called her in a panic, whispering that there was a “black mamba” in her laundry room. It was a coiled extension cord. She’d unplugged the iron and left it on the floor.
The shedding snake (real but harmless): Okay, this one is actually terrifying. A friend found a shed snake skin in her bathtub—which meant a real snake had been there, even if it was gone. She moved. I don’t blame her.
What Actually Happened to My Bathtub (The Plumbing Truth)
For those of you who are curious about the actual plumbing issue, here’s the rest of the story.
The slow leak under my building had been caused by tree roots infiltrating the old clay pipes. Over years, the roots had created tiny cracks. Water seeped out slowly—not enough to notice in water bills, but enough to keep the soil perpetually damp.
