No Water

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No Water
On Saturday May 1, 2010, just over a week ago, a collar connecting two pieces of a water supply main broke in Weston, MA.  The numbers associated with this failure are impressive:  64 million gallons of water was lost, 30 communities equaling 700, 000 households or some 2 million people were affected.  We were told that the water was unsafe to drink and we had to boil it for at least one minute before drinking it.  The stores suddenly became barren of bottled water.  People panicked.  The unofficial “man on the street” opinion was that it was going to take weeks to fix.

When I found out, I was on a highway heading south west in Connecticut to visit a friend.  I got the call, “Yeah, we’re in a boil water order.”  OK.  “Just thought you should know.”  OK.  Have fun with that.  See you tomorrow when I get back.

In Connecticut I bought a case of 6 gallons of water at Costco, because why not.  If this was going to be weeks, then let’s get this party started.
By Tuesday, the water main was fixed and the water was tested safe.  We had to run the cold water in the sink for a minute and run the hot water for 15 minutes – though a couple warm showers I think also did the trick.

We had no water for 3 days – 2 for me since I was going away to see a friend.  Not really a big hardship.  No major sacrifice.  No big loss.  To many, not having potable water was hardship, but that wasn’t hardship.  That was nothing close to hardship.  Hardship is when you don’t have a choice of 5 brands of bottled water and 5 more brands of carbonated bottled water in your local supermarket, which are EVERYWHERE.  Hardship is when you don’t have food on the table or even the hope of food on or near the table.  Hardship is when water, any water, is scarce. 

We were not in hardship.  We were in “wait and see.”  We were in, “Well I’m glad we have the best water supply in the world.”  We were in, “We are lucky to have what we have.”

I’ve decided that I like the occasional drought.  It can be a good teacher.  I like water, but I can appreciate it even more when it’s not as convenient to get it.