He called me at work. “The house is flooding!” he said, then laughed.

I rushed home, panicking. He was wading knee-deep through black sludge in the living room. “It’s crude oil!” he said. “It’s coming in through the bathtub! We’re rich!”

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have lit that celebratory cigarette.

This story was based on the prompt “it’s crude” at TypeTrigger.