Short Story, Word Challenge, Word Prompt, Wordle, Writing Prompts

A Drip Too Far

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for MLMM Monday Wordle;
the prompt words are shown below.
Here’s where the prompts took me.
tap, leak, annoyance, awkward, cost, cheaper,

tap, leak, annoyance, awkward, cost, cheaper,
difference, chrome, waste, smell, trip, cleaner

Image by Me & Gemini

The leak started small. A quiet tap… tap… tap that graduated from mild annoyance to full-blown psychological torture.

“We can’t replace it!” said Mike, gesturing dramatically at the chrome faucet as though presenting evidence at trial. “New one’s sixty bucks.”

“Sixty?!” Danny clutched his chest. “This washer cost me only two bucks; I’m gonna fix it!”

“You don’t know the difference between a washer and a waffle iron.”

“I watched a YouTube tutorial. The guy showed a cheaper way to fix a leak like this.”

An awkward silence settled over the kitchen, broken only by the relentless drip.

“What a waste of water!” Mike complained, pointing at the puddle collecting in the sink. “And this place used to smell a lot cleaner.”

Danny’s fingers drummed the countertop impatiently.

Mike took a deep breath. “Fine. You fix it. But when it turns into a trip to the emergency plumber at midnight……”

Danny grabbed the toolkit his mom gave him when they moved in. The first twist of the wrench felt authoritative. The second, less so. By the third, something beneath the sink made a sound no pipe should ever make.

“That’s… normal,” Danny announced.

It was not normal.

The faucet started gushing like Old Faithful.

“Turn off the mains!” Danny shrieked.

“WHERE ARE THE MAINS?!”

Neither of them knew. This was, in hindsight, information worth having.

Thirty minutes later, two drenched and embarrassed roommates sat in the kitchen watching a professional plumber effortlessly fix the leaky faucet.

The bill was three hundred dollars.

NAR©2026
#MLMM
#Wordle

This is “Old Faithful” by Annika Andersson & the Boiling Blues Band

MLMM Monday Wordle #476

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

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