Shock and a dim sense of foreboding is when you wake up in the morning, use the toilet and then go to wash your hands…and no water comes out of the faucet. It was 6:30 and so I crawled back into bed, contemplating what to tell Jeff. One part of my head just wanted to doze till 6:45, another part was Freaked Out. Somehow Jeff was partly awake and turned to look at me.
“What is it?” he mumbled.
“The faucet isn't working,” was my sleepy numbed reply.
No and the faucet isn't going to work anytime soon. We stumbled down two flight of steps and landed in a watery basement. Oh, it wasn't so bad. The sub-pump was doing its part and chugging it all out. But there was a hole in the wall, about the size of two quarters and water was just gushing out. It was quite fascinating and the more I watched it, the more fascinating it got. There was a very serene sort of sound to it. Quite like those fountains or waterfalls people rig up in their yards. The soothing sound of water, you know. It was very soothing down there- in between times when the sub-pump switched on and off.
We hustled around and got our boxes off of the ground- we don't think anything was hurt, really. One box that we got down to the bottom, hadn't even got wet through the cardboard. Good old moving boxes. So everything is perched on high, or in the section that must be a bit higher than the rest- a sort of peaceable land, where wet and damp does not prevail.
The story is, our water is turned off. The City of Batavia obligingly arrived at about 7 (they don't fuck around) and used their strength and sinew to turn the water valve off. Apparently, when someone laid the concrete sidewalk, they knocked over the box underneath that controls the valve that turns our water on and off. So…the City did not look pleased (the city took the form of two brawny men. The young one looked pissed as hell and the older had great manners and a rather sad look). The pipe has two breaks in, they told Jeff later as I had already left for work. One is for the City to repair and involves ripping out the sidewalk and the other is for the owner to repair. It will require a backhoe and cooperation between the City and the plumber.
Hmmmmm…so to make a huge long story shorter, the owner was Finally reached through a very sick relator and got the plumber. The plumber arrived and turned sick as well because he realized the pipe Had busted in the ground and that required calling JULIE. For those who don't know, JULIE is an Illinois mandate. And a real bitch. It's required by our state that we call JULIE whenever we intend to make any sort of hole in the ground. Garden, backhoe, putting in shrubs, trees, whatever. And JULIE calls everyone- the electricity company, the cable guy, the gas guy, the water guy and la-di-da. These people from various companies come out, use their little machines and figure out where electric lines are underground, cable, water mains, etc. This is, of course, for everyone's protection from hitting dangerous things in the ground. However, JULIE is notoriously slow and rather slack. And they give you a date when you can start digging your holes. For us, this time, it's Wednesday. Wednesday without water. And who knows? Given JULIE's ineptness (and the companies we pay bills to), it might take longer than that.
The owner's wife was very sweet and they offered to pay to put us up at a hotel. That's tempting but grim. I hate hotels (they're so bland and so utterly depressing and boring!) and while running water and toilets ROCK, we just thought we'd wing it. Gallons of water, refilling the gallons at neighbors (to make the toilet flush) and running over the Library to use their facilities, will the be the name of the game these next few days. Wish us luck (and sanity).
