Must... find... water...

Waaaattttttteeeeeerrrrrrr!!! 

The water saga is entering its fourth week. I'm sure that all of you are amazed at that. I am too, for that matter. The first week I was ticked because I didn't want to spend nearly as much as I was going to have to to get water restored to my house. I did something that I can do very well - I procrastinated. Of course it was for a good reason. I needed to find out how much my different options were going to cost me; that and the fact that I've been slammed the past four weeks at work. Thus week 1 is my fault. In fact, week one and 1/2 is my fault. However, two weeks ago tomorrow I went down to the town hall of China Grove, gave them a check for $900.00 and said, "Please install a tap to city water on my property." The nice young lady working there told me, "It should be installed by the beginning of next week." I said, "Thank you very much." and left with the confidence that I would only have to be away from my home for just a few more days....

JUST ...

......A...

......... FEW ...

............... MORE ...

..................... DAYS ...

Days have now become weeks. My parents have started using words that I've not heard in years: curfew, chores, rent. Now it is China Grove's fault. About Wednesday of last week I went down to town hall again to inquire (very politely and patiently) if they knew when my tap installation was scheduled. "After all," I informed the nice lady working in the office, "I've been without water for nearly three weeks!" She smiled and called the foreman that would be in charge of the installation of my new tap. He told her that I could expect for it to be installed early the next week....

That's this week. Today is Tuesday, and by any reckoning, early this week would have ended today. So I went by my house to admire my new city water tap. Of course (You can FEEL it coming, can't you?) when I got to my house no sign of my shiny, new city water tap. OK, it won't be shiny, but it had BEST be new! I decided to extend my trip and headed over to the town offices of the lovely metropolis of China Grove, where, apparently there has been a big run on city water taps!

I was greeted by the same nice lady at the front desk, who immediately went to another room and retrieved said foreman so that he could talk directly to me. I asked him (politely and with a smile, of course) when this week I could expect for my tap to be installed. He told me, "Well, this is Farmers' Day weekend. I won't be able to get that done until early next week."

Unfortunately all of those anger management classes hadn't kicked in quickly enough, because before I could restrain it, fire flashed in my eyes and I shot back, "That's what you told me last week." (Fortunately, they couldn't read my mind where I was thinking, "I don't give a tinker's DAM if the Pope is coming to town! I WANT MY $900 WATER TAP!")

I looked down, spread my feet to shoulders' width, took a deep breath, and looked Mr. Foreman in the eye and said, "That's not going to work for me. I've been without water for FOUR weeks now." Perhaps it was the maniacal glow in my eyes or perhaps it was the way I squared up like a linebacker that was about to take a wide receiver apart, but Mr. Foreman said, "You don't have ANY water at all? OK, we can get it done tomorrow."

DUH! No, I've got PLENTY of water. I'm just spending hundreds of dollars needlessly because you just can't get enough water! Y'know?

So as it stands, my tap is SUPPOSED to be installed tomorrow. If it is there will be much rejoicing, and if not, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I'm hoping for rejoicing. Then I get to wait a few more days while my plumber lines up a trenching crew, necessary permits, a crew to find buried cables and junk, and actually installs the new line from my tap to my house. Fortunately, my plumber is a bit more on top of things.

More tomorrow...