Guest Post By Prairie:
So it all started at around 10:30 this morning. I was in the kitchen, innocently making breakfast, when I got butter on my fingers. I turned to the sink to wash off the butter, and to my surprise, when I turned the tap, no water came out of the faucet. It coughed and burped a couple times. Then nothing.
As I stood there staring at it, there came a sudden knock at the front door. I admit, I jumped–the timing was just a bit creepy. I opened the door to find our landlord, Jim, standing in the hall. Jim said, “I have some news for you.”
I said, “We don’t have any water.”
Jim said, “Yes, your hot water heater burst and flooded the basement. I’ve had to shut your water off.”
I said, “Oh, that would explain why we don’t have any water.”
Jim explained that they were working on the problem, and we should have water–both hot and cold–by the end of the afternoon. In the meantime, the apartment across the hall from us is currently vacant, and he was going to leave it unlocked so we could use the facilities there. After a couple more knocks on the door (needed to shut off electricity to the water heater), Jim assured us he was well on the way to fixing the problem. The new water heater would be installed, and life would continue as normal.
None of this seemed to be all that big a deal. Michael and I filled a couple buckets with water so we could continue to flush the toilet in our apartment, made sure the water pitcher in the ‘fridge was full, and went about our day. We went to the dedication ceremony at the new community library that opened a few blocks from us, then Michael headed off to work. I left the car with him, and walked home, stopping at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner tonight (and another bag of cherries–yum, summer fruit!). When I got home, there was still no water, but I wasn’t worried. I could hear thumping from the basement.
A short time later, there was a knock on the door. Jim grinned at me and announced that the new water heater was installed. We would have piping hot water in a matter of minutes. He said to call him in half an hour if there was no hot water. Dutifully, I returned to my book while watching the clock. In half an hour, I ran the water. Cold. Not so much as luke warm, even. Not tepid. Certainly not boiling. Cold. So I called Jim. He came back over, and shut everything off again. He fiddled with things, and I heard more thumping from the basement. He came back upstairs and told me to call him in half an hour.
In half an hour the water was still cold. Not so much as a hint of warmth was coming from our pipes. I called Jim. We repeated the routine. By this point, both of us were sure the next attempt would work. And yet, in half an hour we repeated the routine again. Finally we decided to call it a day (it was about 6:30, and we were both sick of dealing with it). We figured we’d get a fresh start in the morning.
There was cold water, so I decided to at least rinse the dishes that had stacked up over the day in the sink, and put them in the dishwasher. I rinsed the dishes, washing all the “icky” mushrooms Michael had picked out of his stir-fry the evening before down into the garbage disposal. I stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and reached to turn on the garbage disposal. And the lights went out. The garbage disposal did not roar to life. That was not normal. I flipped the garbage disposal switch back off. The lights came back on. I found this amusing, so I did it a couple more times. I noticed that the clock above the stove also went out when I flipped the garbage disposal switch. I called Jim, who dropped his dinner and came back over, declaring that he, “had to see this!”
When he arrived at our door (once again), he added a bit to the story. The wiring in our building is wonky at best. We knew this from when a transformer up the block had blown this past fall, and only parts of our apartment were without electricity. The repairman who had come to install the new water heater did NOT know this. Apparently he’d completely botched wiring in the new water heater, and (in Jim’s words) something had gotten fried. I’m not nearly technical enough to have desired any explanation more detailed than this. I nodded. They thought they’d solved the problem. I flipped the switch on the garbage disposal. The lights went out. Jim cracked up. Apparently something was still fried.
So we started flipping switches to see what else would happen. When we turned on the toaster, the lights dimmed. The microwave hums and glows slightly, but doesn’t actually go. I turned a burner on the stove onto “high.” And waited. And touched it. And waited. And touched it. And waited. After about five minutes, I decided that even though the light on the stove declared it to be on, it was not going to get warm. (On the up side, the refrigerator still seems to be working.) This problem is apparently beyond Jim’s expertise with electricity. Not wanting to see a man get electrocuted in my kitchen, I assured him we could survive for a while with things the way they are. Jim went home, and I wandered around the apartment flipping switches to see what else was effected.
I tried to boot Michael’s computer. All the lights on that side of our apartment went out. Our phone and Internet service all run through Michael’s computer. Apparently so do all the appliances on my bedside table. As of 8:00 tonight, here’s the list of things in our apartment that do not work: the hot water, the garbage disposal, the toaster, the microwave, the stove and oven, Michael’s computer, the lights in the office, the TV and stereo and DVD player in the living room, my bedside lamp, and my alarm clock. There are somethings that still work: the cold water, the refrigerator, my computer, Michael’s bedside lamp and alarm clock, and the TV and DVD player in the bedroom.
At about 8:30, after not being able to use the phone of the Internet to contact anyone to whine to about all the issues, I decided I’d walk to the mall and tell Michael. He looked surprised to see me, especially since he hadn’t seen the full effect of standing in the sun without sunscreen for an hour at the library dedication ceremony that I had supposed would be INSIDE the library, not in the park outside the library. I’m a bit of a lobster, but that’s a different story entirely. I explained the home situation to him, ending with, “And I shall require French fries and ice cream before we go home.”
Very kindly, he humored me, and when he was off work, we got lots of French fries, large greasy burgers, and the biggest chocolate milkshake I’ve ever seen in my life. Some days it’s okay to get the “king size” at Burger King. Once my junk food craving had been satisfied, I was feeling much better. I pointed out that my computer was still running, and asked if we could switch everything over so that my computer controls the phone and the Internet. Michael looked amazed that my brain would think of something like that. I pointed out that I was high on chocolate and French fry grease. He laughed at me. And hooked up the phone and Internet to my computer, so now we have both phone and Internet service again.
However, with regard to the rest of this mess: tomorrow is Sunday. No one works on Sunday. Jim told me we’d have to wait until Monday to fix this mess. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long weekend.
