Three Pots of Water

On Friday, I had a tiring day and kept thinking about coming home and taking a bath. I even stopped on the way home to buy some new flower-scented Body Shop bubble bath. When I got home, I went upstairs and cleaned the tub with cold water, then switched to hot to rinse and begin filling. I waited for the water to get hot. And waited. And waited.

It didn't. So I went downstairs to check if the water from the sink would get hot. It wouldn't.

I got my phone and called the real estate place that "manages" our house for our landlord. As I called, I went down the basement to see if I could see any problem with the hot water heater.

As I opened the door, I saw that the basement had been transformed into a shallow swimming pool.

In the meantime, it was about 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I was getting no answer from the real state office. I called the emergency number, and found someone, who called a plumber, then called back to say the plumber would be there first thing in the morning. Then the plumber himself called to confirm. "How early can I call?" he said.

At 10:00 am Saturday morning, still no call from the plumber. I called him, left a message, and heard from him at about 11:00. He said he was caught up in another job and would be over in another hour. At 1:00, he arrived.

"Hi," I said as I answered the door.

"I'm not going to be able to fix this till Monday," he said in return.

As we went into the basement, he said he couldn't get his helper to work today, then that the place that sold hot water heaters was closed till Monday. (Apparently the Home Depot hot water heaters won't do.) He looked everything over, assured me he'd be here Monday, and left.

After some pregnancy-hormone-charged tears about our full dishwasher, the guests we were having over for dinner, and my intense desire for a bath, I sort of got over it, and Dean and I took a long walk in the 75 degree day, planning to get hot and come home and brave a cold shower. We did: it was COLD. It felt extra cold, like water dripping from ice cubes. Headache cold. But we did it.

Today, we'd planned the same, an evening cold shower to hold us over till tomorrow night, when everything SHOULD be fixed. But it is cloudy today, breezy, not nearly as warm. When we came in from another afternoon walk, we were both really dreading the cold water.

So, I filled three pots of water and put them on to boil. We didn't let them get quite to boiling, but they were still pretty hot. Dean went first, and almost burned his head with the first cupful he tried to pour. Then he got the idea of mixing some of the hot with the cold water from the tub. He reported a successful "shower."

I tried it too. I actually mixed some of the water in the pot so I didn't have to keep turning around to the faucet. It worked really well. Nice warm water, and plenty. Now I am clean and cozy in my pajamas.

We figure we could save a lot of water if we always just bathed by kneeling in the tub over a pot of hot water. Who knows, the way things are going, we may get another chance tomorrow.