Oh, Poop. Water We Gonna Do?

Hello. The following happened yesterday.

As humans sometimes do, Rachel attempted to drink a glass of water. We have a water dispenser in our refrigerator, but it suddenly issued no water. So she went to the sink. It did not dispense water. It made a gurgling sound, like a turtle surfacing from a septic tank.

So we waited. After about an hour, there was still no water in the house, which is when we realized we also had no working toilets. This became something of an impending crisis.

Now, most people have experienced the occasional electricity blackout or some-such. It is inconvenient. For example, you have to use candles for light, or cannot get your coffee grinder to pulverize beans for your coffee, which means you have to smash them in a baggie, with a hammer. But, you know. This is about a sense of proportion. When you cannot poop, the stakes rise a bit.

We called the District of Columbia Water People (“DCWP” or something) who told us that our water had been turned off due to nonpayment of water bills. This came as a surprise, inasmuch as we were unaware we had EVER paid water bills. The conundrum was rectified (haha!) with an emergency email to our landlord, Julien, who happens to be my son-in-law. It turns out he had always paid our water bills, as part of the rental agreement, but that his credit card had evidently expired. So, he just gave the Water People the info for his new one. So, cool.

Informed of this generally lamentable situation, my daughter, Molly, dryly informed her husband that he was now, officially, “a slumlord.”

The only remaining problem was that the Water People told me that because of bookkeeping, it would take 24 hours to rectify the toilet situation (Haha!)

Uh. Okay, so the next thing that happened was Rachel arranged to get a hotel for the night. Hotels for a night in Washington, when you add a big dog, cost about $300, which we happily paid, because, as Rachel explained after booking the room, the accommodations come with “unlimited shitting.”

Now, I need to add a fact. I work at home. Rachel works at The Washington Post. So I was at home, writing this column all day while she was at work, working and arranging for hotels and such. I was not comfortable. I asked her if she was okay. She said, “Yes, I gave at the office.”

She asked if I was okay, and I said, truthfully, that I wasn’t sure. That is when she checked her phone, saw her post office “alerts,” and discovered to her joy that we had just gotten a front-door delivery — long-ago ordered — of doggie poop bags. So, she said, that was an option.

In the end (Haha!) everything came out fine. (Haha!)

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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Good. Please give me money. I am a man, and I think women are better.