Wait wait wait, the water heater blew out DURING Christmas dinner? Like in the middle of carving the turkey or opening presents? That's just brutal man, I can't even imagine. You're sitting there passing the mashed potatoes and suddenly there's a flood in the basement, what a nightmare. And he had the yearly inspections going on, paid for that maintenance plan every year, and the thing still waited for the worst possible moment to give up. I mean you'd think those inspections would at least find something, a little rust, a weird noise, something you know? But nope, just goes out like a bomb on cue. That's the kind of luck that makes you want to just give up on maintenance plans entirely.

Six months of needing permission for basic decisions sounds like a whole lot of nothing.

Hold on, I'm the guy who still groans at these things. Respectfully, you had a room full of 8 year olds. They laugh at anything. Try dropping a pun at a work meeting or a parent teacher conference and watch the energy die instantly. They're a crutch to fill awkward silence, not a real conversation builder. Sounds more like the cake sugar kick and the novelty of it all did the heavy lifting. Just saying.

Whoa, that's rough... but I gotta say I think your main problem was working on a damp wall. Dry mix needs the wall to pull moisture out of the mortar to set up right. If the wall's already wet, that water can't go anywhere and the mortar just stays as loose sand and cement. Plus a rainy morning means the bricks themselves are soaked through, so they're not drawing anything out of your mix. That's why it crumbled out so fast. Next time you gotta wait for a few dry days in a row so the wall's good and thirsty.

Man that's rough. Coal really is way faster.