What You Know Vs. What They Know

This morning I woke up to do my usual routine (which is going to the gym at 6:30 a.m. to exercise.) After working out, I started my cold journey back. During my walk back to my dorm, I received a text from my roommate. In the text she said that she borrowed one of my storage buckets because water was pouring out from our ceiling. I was so confused by what she was saying, well, I guess I wasn't confused at what she was saying because I completely understood every single word she had said but I couldn't grasp quite what she meant. This lead me to wondering what really was going on back in our room. So, I quickly grouped all of my things together and ran back to my room. When I walked in, I found exactly what she had told me was happening. Water was pouring from our ceiling. I was in so much shock and couldn't understand why this was happening. I quickly moved all of my things so they wouldn't get damaged and went to get help.
This situation reminded me of one of the topics that we talked about it class that really stuck with me. We discussed the fact that if you don't thoroughly explain what you are talking about to someone, they may not get what you are saying, just as I didn't understand my roommate this morning. Something that we continually went back to that class period was the fact that when someone is reading your writing, you must keep in mind that they may not have had the same experiences or gone through the same circumstances as you. This means that it is very important that you always explain what you are trying to say and what points you are trying to get across; not only this, but you must also clarify any and all background information that your reader may not know.
Before the incident this morning, I did not clearly comprehend how someone wouldn't be able to understand what you are writing. I found that usually people DO "understand" what you are writing because they are familiar with English and can read, but I also found that just because they "understand" it, doesn't necessarily mean that they comprehend the context in which it was written. This situation could cause a lot of confusion as it did for me this morning when my roommate told me water was pouring from our ceiling. At first, I thought she had a type-o, until I walked right into the situation and found out really quickly that she didn't. The only problem with this, is that when we write, our readers cannot "walk right into the situation." It is our job to clearly lay out the situation in writing for our readers.