Running Water

Dearest Rachel –

And here I thought the most interesting thing I would have to relate to you this morning was the fact that I just received (and was trying out) a couple pairs of cushioned insoles for my gym shoes. This is what happens when I forget about the things that I’ve scheduled weeks in advance – although, to be fair, it’s not something I would have thought about doing, nor is it something I’d want to bother with if it weren’t mandatory.

I should mention that saying it was ‘weeks’ ago barely scratches the surface. I’d gotten a notice late last year that I would need to get the home water meter either upgraded or replaced by the village. I think I had originally ignored the notice because I simply assumed they were just going to come over and do it (because it was, you know, mandatory). It wasn’t until I got a second notice three weeks later or so, on a neon orange postcard, that I was made to understand that I had to schedule a time for them to send someone over to accomplish this.

Additionally, this required someone to be at the house to let the installer in, which I figured wouldn’t be a problem, since Daniel would be home at almost any given time on any given day. Still, it would be advisable to let him know when it was happening, so I told him I was having someone come over to do this before going online to make the appointment, which he asked to make as soon as possible, and get it over with. The online portal even seemed to offer an appointment that very afternoon… until I tried to click on it, and it didn’t respond.

As disappointing as this was (which, honestly, wasn’t much; how could I have expected them to have an installer free to send over within a couple of hours, anyway?), I wasn’t too fazed by the situation. Evidently, the village isn’t in that much of a hurry to get the meters swapped out or anything; as long as I make a good faith effort, it’s all good. All the same, I kept on clicking on dates, until I got to one that gave me a response; early in March. I wasn’t sure as to whether I’d remember about it when it happened, but after checking with Daniel as to what time he’d want the guy to show up, left the notification card with him to deal with it.

The appointed day saw me seated at the dining room table, munching on breakfast, when my phone went off. Of course, as you know, I don’t pay that much attention to my phone anymore – unless a name shows up that I recognize, I assume it’s spam (or worse) – but they left a voicemail, which I, despising those little red dots in the corner of my app icons, had to listen to. It was the installation company, informing me that the assigned plumber had come down with a cold or the flu, and would not be able to come out for a few days, at the very least, and would I be so kind as to call back and reschedule?

Well, what choice did I have? They gave me a few possible dates, and I chose the earliest one – in terms of both date and time – because by now, I was just wanting to get this over with and the village off my back. Once the arrangements were made, the person on the other end of the line both apologized and thanked me profusely for being so accommodating, and the call was over and done with.

Meaning it was all “out of sight, out of mind” for me. Until this morning.

As always, I was slowly getting started, paging through my news feed and trying to work up sufficient motivation to get myself out the door and off to the gym (despite already being dressed to do so, and the sun being up and shining its heart out over the area – a situation that wasn’t going to last, as it turned out, but that’s hardly relevant to this story) when the doorbell rang. You of all people know just how rare a thing this is where we live, especially at such an early hour as seven-thirty or so. So, while I couldn’t imagine who it was who might be ringing our bell, I didn’t know of any particular reason to not answer, either; if it was a salesman, as I was expecting it to be, I would try to gently dissuade him from hawking his wares to a disinterested party such as myself.

Of course, given the lengthy introduction I’ve already spun for you, you can guess that it wasn’t a salesman at all, but the long-awaited installer for our new water meter. I’d completely forgotten that this was the day that I’d agreed to have him come out. However, seeing as he had to be let in, and shown to where the water meter was, it turned out to be just as well that I hadn’t wandered off to the gym after all; Daniel was still fast asleep, and the doorbell did nothing to change that. Moreover, I suspect he wouldn’t have been able to show the guy to where the old meter was; even I had trouble with that, until the guy suggested checking out the crawl space (originally, I’d expected to find it in the utility room, among the steampunk pipeworks we have there).

And while I don’t think he would have had any difficulty with the task had he been awake, it was just as well I was there to turn on (and later, at his request, off) all of the taps in the house to drain them before he could swap out the meter. Once it was done, he also had me turn each of them on a second time to purge excess air from the pipes and generate a steady flow of water in each of them. You rarely consider how many sinks and taps a house has until you have to go through and start and stop them all in sequence.

Fortunately, apart from that, the fellow was quick with his end of the installation. It was only a little after eight when he declared his work here done, so he could move on to his next appointment, leaving me to finish with the aeration process in the taps. “Don’t worry about the bathtub or the shower” he assured me; evidently, they would sort themselves out when they were next used. And while I can’t speak for the bathtub, I can acknowledge that there was no issue regarding the water pressure in the shower; once I got back from the gym, I didn’t notice a bit of difference from the last time I used it.

In any event, that was my morning (apart from the other, more customary routine activities, such as breakfast and greeting “Lee”); now I have to get on with the afternoon, and hunker down from the storm that’s blowing in. Keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.