12 January 2023

Water- The Good. The Bad. The UGLY.

We came home the day after Christmas to Niagara Falls in three of our downstairs rooms.
(If you don't know what I'm talking about, drop down a couple posts and catch up, you slaggard!)
I slogged underneath the house and got the water (mostly) shut off, then called our insurance company-
(Take into account... this was the day after Christmas at 2000 hours.)
"All our agents are busy. Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received."
90 minutes transpire. And when I actually got a chance to chat with a real human being she was professional, nice, and sympathetic to our situation. We discussed our dilemma for an hour.

Next morning, trying to get in touch with a plumber I called DOZENS-
"This is (blah, blah, blah) plumbing. We are out of the office until January 4th. Merry Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
I knew these facts:
The temperature in our area had dropped WELL below zero. The likelihood that many (hundreds) in our area were dealing with the same problem we had was not gonna be in our favor.
We had no water for 48 hours. I suspect we've all been in this position...
Coffee! Go to the faucet with carafe in hand and reach for the faucet only to realize that's a futile effort.
This happened SEVERAL times before I went to (evil) Wally World and bought a few gallons of distilled water.

We don't realize how spoiled we are until we are deprived of certain things-
Flip the switch and illuminate the room so you don't bust your derriere.
Push the lever down to make that bad smelling stuff you just sat down and deposited go away.
(I won't sicken you and tell you what we reduced ourselves to doing while we had no water.)
Fortunate- we had a pro plumber show up about two days after our incident. And he didn't charge us an arm and leg to find and fix our problem. He even crawled beneath our house twice!

And how odd it felt... looking at the damage to three rooms in our (formerly comfortable) home, knowing what the future held with having to tear the place apart in order to get back to something like "normal".
But... we could take the carafe to the tap, turn the handle, and make coffee.

Thinking of folks long ago who had to make coffee over an open campfire after they fetched water from a "crick"...
I said a prayer and thanked GOD for my many blessings.



2 comments:

Well Seasoned Fool said...

I, and Banner, are blessed. Our 96 unit senior apartment had many burst pipes when the temperature went from sub zero to zero. Other than not having water for a few hours, we were slightly inconvenienced. I have neighbors who apartments are still soaked, walls and ceilings damaged, mold in their closets, etc. It will be weeks before all is fixed.

Old NFO said...

Good news! And yes, we DO value our comforts...