Well, Water

Me Doctor has preached to me for years (you know how doctors nag) the importance of staying hydrated. That means drinking lots of water. But water is like, well, water (well water; see how I worked that in?). 

Well water is great. I still remember me Grandpaw and Grandmaw Hutchins having a well right by their back porch. It looked exactly like something from an old movie too: round and wooden, with a bucket and pulley to drop down into the water for a nice cold drink. There was even a metal ladle hanging on a hook just under the small roof of the well.

That was maybe the best tasting water I ever drank. And cold! You wouldn't believe you could drink it. But you could, right out of the ground.

Sometimes as a kid I would get a drink simply for the neatness of it, to lower that bucket and withdraw that clear water. It was kind of disappointing when they removed the old well and installed a pump. But so it goes.

Analyzing Saturday's Water Issue

Yesterday, you may recall, I lamented the accidental, temporary shut off of my water last Saturday. If you don't recall, you may catch up here: No Water Anywhere

I honestly don't see how the water department employees who shut off my water rather than my neighbor's could have committed such an error. It shouldn't take a brain surgeon to determine which shutoff was mine and which was for next door. Here's why: the shutoff valves for our houses are right next to each other, about a foot and a half apart just above the curb of the street. If you're looking straight at the fronts of our homes, mine is on the right while my neighbor's is to the left. Who would not think that the shutoff on the left went to his house while the one on the right went to mine?

That's a rational conclusion, isn't it? Wouldn't common sense tell you as much? The only other option would be for the lines to cross one another, and that seems clearly outlandish. Anyone without any training in water flow technology at all, I have to think, could figure it out easily. Yet the guys from the water department, with their maps and charts and all the tools of determining how water supply lines are routed believed that the shutoff on the right went to the house on the left, and vice versa.

I should have let them find out the hard way, by going into my neighbor's basement and having high pressure water knock them onto their keisters when they disconnected his water meter. It would have made a great funniest home video reel. But the neighbor needed his meter replaced and I needed my water, so it all worked out for the best. 

Just the same, I do wonder if perhaps some people ought to be made to learn from their mistakes the hard way. Especially when the answer appears obvious.

Water, Water, Not Everywhere

Few things cause panic more than when an ordinarily reliable thing suddenly refuses to perform ordinarily. 

Saturday after work I was powerfully thirsty. I came into my house and went straight for the kitchen faucet without much thought but that I wanted a drink of water. "Dum-dee-dum-dum, going to the kitchen, gonna get a glass of water," was about the extent of my train of thought as I approached the sink. "Nothing to see here, dum-dee-dum-dum, just Marty getting water." So imagine my surprise when, upon turning the handle on the cold water, I was met with gurgling and little more.

"This isn't supposed to happen!" I silently exclaimed, panic desperately streaming into my frontal lobes. "Where's the whoosh? Where's the cold H2O? Where's the liquid to quench my thirst? Where's the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?"

Sorry. Slipped into a little Marvin the Martian there. But it fit the timing and mood of my rant.

Be all that as it may, it panics you when you don't get the tap water you expect, because you always get the tap water you expect, right? 

My intellect, cowering behind my frontal lobes as panic had shoved it frighteningly aside, meekly suggested, "Perhaps you should check if your neighbor has water?" It then cowered a bit lower and winced, as if expecting to be smacked by the back of my hand.

Thinking about the suggestion, I lowered the back of my hand. I went outside and saw that my neighbor was out front with representatives of the water department. They had turned off his - and by his I mean my - water in preparation to do some work in his - and by his I mean his this time - house. They had managed this despite my neighbor rightly asking, "Aren't you turning off Marty's water?" He was assured they knew what they were doing.

I know what I was doing: insisting those erstwhile professionals turn my water back on. But I am glad I caught it when I did. Who knows how long it might have taken to get my water back if they hadn't been made to realize their mistake before leaving?