Bob and Sandy live in a flooded house, in a flooded neighborhood where Leonard the alligator lurks in the front yard and most of their neighbors have fled. When a ferocious storm hits during a dinner party with the minister and his prophetic wife, Cassie, rising waters force them to retreat to the roof for coffee and dessert. Miraculously, a neighbor appears with a boat to save them, and Sandy and Bob must decide whether to face the truth of their dire situation and go, or cling to the chimney and their delusional hope that all will be well in the end.

Kristin and Gary, a young couple with no children, suddenly find their lives at sixes-and-sevens when Mary, a British nanny with a strange resemblance to that other British Mary, marches into their home and begins "tidying up" their marriage.