Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Waterworks

There were some "diggers" doing some sort of work around the corner from our house today, and one side effect of that was our house (and the houses around us) not having any water from about 11:00 a.m. until it came sputtering back on around 2:30. I heard it come back on because, not being informed of this multi-hour water shut-off which occurred right during lunch time, I had a load of laundry going, and at 2:30 I heard the machine start emptying into our basement drain again.

The girls literally could not get it through their heads that there was no water to be had at our house. I turned on the kitchen faucet to wash hands when we came in from getting Annie at school, and nothing came out. A neighbor across the street confirmed that theirs was out, too, so I got out the stuff for PB&Js and let the girls make their own after dousing them with hand sanitizer. As they spread the peanut butter messily on the bread, the conversation went like this:

"So, is there water in the bathroom faucet?"

"Nope. No water anywhere in our whole house."

"If we went outside and turned on the outside faucet, would water come out?"

"Nope. No water."

"If we tried to flush the toilet, would water go into it?"

"Nope. No water in the whole house, remember?"

Pause. Spreading peanut butter.

"How about if we tried to turn on the faucet in the upstairs bathroom?"

I raised my eyebrows and forced a smile. "Nope. NO WATER. ANYWHERE." There was much angst about this, as both their water bottles were perilously low, and the hand sanitizer left Annie's hands both smelling and tasting bad, a fact she mentioned, oh, 43 times. Where WAS the water? When would it come back ON? What if we had not yet brushed our teeth for the day? What then? Sigh.

Post-2:30, the girls were delighted to use the water normally again, and I think, seeing as we inadvertently missed Earth Hour earlier this week, it was a good lesson, and one I hope they remember the next time I bust out with the "Some people don't have enough food to eat or a house or clean water" routine.

This afternoon, I built them an obstacle course which involved skipping down the sidewalk, sprinting up the driveway, detouring to sing a favorite song, hopscotch, jumping jacks, somersaults down the lawn, and bouncing a ball while counting to ten. It was a hit with the neighborhood children. I also snuck in a trip to Jersey Junction with them, partly because I very much wanted a vanilla malt and partly because I wanted them to accompany me on a couple annoying errands with no whining. Those chocolate shakes in the backseat did the trick.

Jason's off riding his new mountain bike into the sunset, and I'm off to fold that load of laundry and be particularly grateful for another sunny day and water that works again.

1 comment:

  1. Just to add to the hilarity that was "no water on our street for 3+ hours," we were gone to field trips and lunch until about 2:15 p.m. yesterday afternoon. Upon walking in to clean their hands, my children were equally appalled at no water. After calling a neighbor, I found out this has been going on for hours so I prepped the children accordingly. However, in a miraculous turn of events, Lucy "tried the basement sink" and it WORKED! IT WORKED! I didn't try to explain to her that at the moments between turning the sink on upstairs and the basement, the water actually was turned back on. I decided to just let her think that she was magic. Ha!

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