It's true that a person can never plan for anything, as there's usually a wrench to come along and interrupt whatever we had previously planned out.
For example: yesterday, after work, (I had taken a few of my girls on a field trip to see Precious - more on that later), I wanted to come home, do a bit o'blogging, make smoked gouda macaronni and cheese, and go see the Girl Guitar showcase at Antone's. Instead, I came home to learn that a water pipe had broken under our apartment and the water was shut off indefinitely, but would not be on any sooner than the following afternoon.
Excuse me!?
No running water for ten minutes or more = post-apocalyptic conditions to me. I'm a neurotic germaphobe who must wash her hands no later than five minutes after walking in the door, and the idea of no flushing toilets in a house with two boys sounds... ghastly, and I had no drinking water for myself or the dog. Plus teeth brushing? Showering in the morning? Straight, fine hair like mine does not tolerate a day without washing.
To further my neurosis, I started pondering the possibility of a waterless future and how terrible it will be the day that there's never again going to be fresh water coming out of the tap. If you've been around this blog a bit, you may remember that I've talked about water worries before. At Nolanville Elementary, way back in the fourth grade, I wrote a short story called "The Day The Water Stopped" about a town's water source getting clogged by trash and a Sand Lot-esque young man saving the day with a huge recycling project. (So if you're wondering, yes, I've always had a granola mentality).
But not being one to sit around and fret, (too much), I did the only reasonable thing: packed my bag, packed the dog, packed the boy, and went to my dad's house in Copperas Cove for the night.
What could be better than a spontaneous road trip that comes with a Taco Bueno stop, Zeigenbock six packs from a gas station, movie marathons in a home theatre room (hello! where was this when I actually lived at home?), sleeping in, waking up to the doorbell at 10AM and a man saying he's there to fix the sprinkler system and needs to turn the water for the house off....
Um, what!? I fled Austin to find a house with running water, and here, at the threshold of my water asylum, was a man telling me he needed to turn the water off before I'd even had a shower. Fate is cruel!
Luckily, he wasn't, and he agreed to wait an hour, giving me time to enjoy the shower I'd driven 1.5 hours to get, (3 hours round trip).
Stressful indeed, but at the end of the day, happy eggs at Egg Town restaurant made everything better.
Although, my post-apocalyptic-no-water-nightmare has already been fully realized in the musical Urinetown.
In the show, water is scarce, so in order to ration the supply, a large corporation charges the citizens a per-pee fee in a public restroom, and renegade pee-ers are hauled off to the mysterious Urinetown where they are never seen again. Hysterical and grim, I offer up the opening musical act, and encourage watching to at least the 2:50 mark.
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