Complacency

A short story of complacency and how it will bite you in the butt most every time

I have been at site for seven months and in my house for three.  I know how reliable utilities are.  As my former site mate used to say; “a day with two out of three is a good day” I had a headache on Tuesday, so didn’t go into work and slept until late afternoon.  Got up and didn’t have water.  Ok, I thought, I have a bucket of water in the bathroom, the teapot is half full, I have a pitcher of filtered water in the fridge and a large bottle of boiled water. Unfortunately I did not get water at any appreciable level back that night.  Wednesday morning, still no water but I had enough for a cup of coffee.  Surely, I thought I’ll have water tonight when I get home.  Alas, no water. I checked with my landlord and was able to fill my teapot from the hot water tank. The bucket in the bathroom was getting low.  Had no idea why we had no water.  Thursday morning – still no water.  Still enough for a cup of coffee. Thursday evening – still no water. Refilled the teapot.  Went to language lessons with my host sister.  Finally found out what was going on.  They are fixing a main water pipe and shutting off the water in the morning till evening.  I get up around 8:30 after the water is turned off. It is turned back on sometime between 7:30 and 9:00 but the pressure is low.  The sink in my house already has low pressure so it didn’t appear that I had water even if I did.  I had a little better flow from one of the spigots in my bathroom, but it was also quite weak compared to normal.  Tonight water came back at 7:00.  I immediately filled all buckets in the bathroom.  Refilled all my drinking water containers and washed my dishes.  With the low water pressure, these tasks took about 45 minutes.  I have it on good authority that it is unknown when the pipe will be fixed. 

While the morale of this store is to keep my water supplies filled, it is likely I will get complacent again and get bitten in the butt once again.