So you know it’s not a good sign when you are driving home from work, you are one block from your house and you see “Road Closed Ahead”. That was our day on Wednesday. Mike and I had both met at home for lunch earlier in the day and saw orange cones from the Public Works & Utilities Department at the end our driveway. There were no city workers to be seen, just orange cones. My guess was that we had another water main break on our street – the second time this winter. We usually have at least one per year. It’s so nice to live in a quaint neighborhood with homes built during the 1950’s. Old houses with character and ancient water and sewer lines. We ate our lunch without water in the house, cleaned our hands with Purell and headed back to work hoping that we would have water when we returned at the end of the day (very wishful thinking).
Being the planner that I am, I came home prepared with two 5 gallon containers of water from my work. When I was a block from our house, I saw the sign “Road Closed Ahead” and knew what we were in store for. I’m sure the kids enjoyed an evening where we said – “No Baths or Showers Tonight” and “Remember, DON’T Flush”. We were fortunate enough to be able to park in our garage and even had a front row view of the action. I think the kids were more excited about watching the work unfold in front of our house than they were about watching the Olympics that night. We even took a few photos just for fun.
By 9:15pm, water returned to our faucets! We were overjoyed. The guys weren’t done yet though. They still had to fill the gigantic hole in road. By 10:30pm, we were able to ignore the pounding outside our bedroom and went to sleep. I’m not sure when they finally finished, but they were gone in the morning.
Although our drought was short-lived, it made us appreciate being able to wash our hands, flush the toilet and take a nice, hot shower the next morning. Water – it’s a wonderful thing.
M. Sullivan Photography 