My house hates me. It’s trying to dehydrate me, but soon enough it’s going to do a Stephen King on me. Have you ever seen The Mangler? It’s written by King and the plot goes along the lines of “a giant laundry folding machine, that can walk stairs, follows people around and devours them”. I’m probably going to end up crushed by some wall toppling over me or perhaps the house decides to impale me on the toilet some how. But it hasn’t come to that yet; currently it’s only warming up with dehydrating its tenants.
I know millions of people endure a lot worse (“third world countries”), but not having water is ghastly. And, in a sense, I still have water, since my neighbors are glad to borrow me some, which I carry home in buckets. But this is the sixth time since we moved here that we’ve been without running water from our well. The first time was one week after we moved in (the one-way valve jammed). We’ve also had e-coli bacteria in the water, and six months ago the old pump broke due to the aggressiveness of the water combined with the massive amounts of iron in the ground. (The iron is probably the evil brain behind the house, leaving the grunt work to lesser beings.) One week ago the water ate though the hydraulic accumulator, and through the hole water jetted out in our basement. Nice touch - “the house wet itself”. And last night at 04:00 the water in our pipes had frozen. Fortunately no copper pipes cracked, no equipment damaged. Yet.
When the water’s gone for a week or two and there is no water to drink, no showers, no real hygiene, you realize how bad you need it. Just fixed the frozen pipes - this calls for a celebration! But the next time the house pulls something like this on me I’m going to… relive myself on it… badly!
