My office, in a late style of flood.

So, last week, my office flooded. Apparently, in the community college micro-climate there was a perfect storm of not-quite-finished roofing work and torrential rain. I got a call on my cell phone from counterintuitive, announcing that water was pouring from the ceiling, all over the

• desk
• art
• printer
• shelves
• stacks of crap piled on every horizontal surface
• treasured photos of my beloveds.

Before I could make up my mind to get down there--the stacks of crap were what I thought of most--I heard that they'd shut down the building, rendering my dithering, shall we say, moot. Before they were kicked out, counterintuitive, my boss, and another friend rescued a few precious things. Then, I heard they had giant fans going, the power was shut off, blah blah blah.

Yesterday, I got the following phone calls from the historian:

1. the Risk Management people want me to come and take everything out of my office by the end of the day. They're taking out the ceiling, which is made of asbestos dipped in asbestos, and textured in asbestos dots.
2. the Risk Management people have already taken everything out of my office. They're in a hurry.

So I went to the big room where they'd removed all the books, furniture, shelves, desk, etc. I found, also, the stacks of crap, looking a little wrinkled for their brief sojourn underwater. Almost everything looked just fine, hurray. They're supposed to finish the ceiling, and then there will be new carpet, so it's kind of an everybody wins scenario, especially if I can get in there and toss the stacks. I think this will entail making categorical decisions, such as:

• if it was sitting on the floor, it is categorically crap and can be tossed without further ado.
• if it was in a miscellaneous stack on my main desk or my other desk, it is categorically crap and can be tossed &c.
• if it was in a folder and therefore belonged at one time to a student, it is not crap, but it is nonetheless tossable without sorting or other fretting.

A fortunate accident, right? because my office will be freshly carpeted, newly ceilinged, and de-crappified when I come back to use it again.