Our Day Without Water

Running water. It is something most of us have in our homes these days. It is also something I have taken for granted...up until now. You see, last week we had a little snafu with our water bill, and we had no running water for 24 hours.

When I came home last Thursday I asked Brian how his day was. He replied with "Good. But we have a problem." The look on his face was a dead giveaway as to how severe our problem was. "We have no water." WHAT!?!?

When the water bill came last month, Brian put it in his laptop bag with some other bills that he was going to sort through during lunch. Apparently the water bill got buried under some other stuff and was never paid. The current month's bill wasn't due yet, so it was forgotten about and we really had no idea that the previous month's bill hadn't been paid.

The county, however, knew about our non-payment and I guess they weren't too happy with us. They came by on Thursday morning around 9:00 and left a hang tag on our door notifying us that if the bill wasn't paid by 4:00, our water will be shut off. Thanks for the notice, jerks! Do they not realize that most people are at work during those hours? Or is that just part of their evil plan?

We tried calling their after hours line, and were told that nothing could be done until the next morning, even after I gave him a sob story about having two young children in the house. "I just work at the water treatment plant" said the nice man on the other end of the phone, "I can't look up accounts or get the keys needed to turn your water back on." When I asked what would happen if there were some type of "real" emergency he told me that it would also have to wait until morning. Uh huh. Riiiiight.

I was livid. No, I was insanely pissed. I believe there was a point in time when I seriously contemplated killing my husband. Lucky for him, he had prepared some super yummy lettuce wraps for dinner, so by the time I was done eating, I came to the reality that sometimes crap happens.

The next 24 hours pretty much sucked, but it could have been worse. We happened to have six gallons of water in the back of the pantry from the 2004 hurricanes. The water had expired a year ago (please tell me how water "expires"), but it was fine for hand washing, which is something I do very often. We had smaller, unexpired bottles of water for teeth brushing.

Rylie and Bryce got to take "baths" in the pool, and they certainly didn't mind. The pool also came in handy for toilet flushing. "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down." While that certainly isn't my motto, I would have been OK with the first part of that for a day. But thank goodness we had water available for flushing it down, because I probably would have made my family do the "brown stuff" out in the yard like the dog. Hey, it's better than stinking up the house, right?

Lucky for us, my mom's new house is right down the street, so we were able to shower over there Friday morning. Brian had to go to work and I had appointments at the spa. I couldn't show up for my massage with stubble on my legs, that's for sure!

OK, OK, I know you're thinking that we didn't have it all that rough, but really, it sucked. It was just a hassle. I have no idea how people live without running water, and I realize how lucky we are to have these modern day conveniences. After using almost all of the 6 gallons of water, I also realized just how much water we use on a daily basis, and made a mental note to try to conserve whenever possible.

I'm happy to report that our delinquent bill was paid first thing in the morning on Friday, and our water was finally turned on around 4:00. I doubt my husband will ever misplace that bill again...