Sometimes Life Forces You To Slow Down

THURSDAY

6:30AM – (A young couple gets ready for work)

Her: Oh, I just remembered hearing about the water being shut off in the area for about 24 hours.

Him: When?

Her: I can’t remember hearing when.

Him: Hmph! That's helpful. Anyway, they don’t normally make those announcements more than a day in advance.

Her: Do we have enough filled up in case?

Him: No. We need to fill up.

Her: We can’t do that now. We’ll be late for work.

Him: I know! (Rolling his eyes) Anyway, the landlord has two huge water tanks in back. We should be okay. We probably won’t even have to use our reserves.

Her: Okay.

********

Just after 1:00PM – He is tired. He has been burning the candle at both ends these days and now he realizes he can’t even see straight. As he chugs his fourth cup of coffee he tries not to sound like a babbling idiot when he explains procedures to the trainee in his department.

4:30PM – He manages to survive and heads home. He shuffles up the stairs to his apartment and enters.

Something is off. He can’t place his finger on it but he’s too tired to care. He proceeds towards the bathroom, relieves himself and flushes. This is when he realizes that the tank isn’t refilling. His eyes widen. He heads back down the hall and sticks his head back into the living room. He now knows what it was that he sensed earlier.

It was the silence. What was missing was the familiar thump, thump, thump of the leaky kitchen faucet he'd been getting around to fixing one day.

"Shit!" 

FRIDAY

10:00AM – Mrs. C is at work. We decided the night before that she would use what was left of our water so that she could not miss any of her training for her transfer to day-shift. I sit at my netbook (the one that’s now down for repairs) writing this post. I keep the electric fan close, on high and directly pointed at me because, after not having bathed since yesterday morning, unnecessary sweating must be avoided. It seems that we were already running on the tank reserves even before our conversation yesterday morning and the 24 hours the water company said it would take was actually more of a suggestion. If nothing else, the forced day off from work was much needed.