DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

We were without water for six hours today. Plumbing, it turns out, is one of those things you don’t really appreciate until it is gone.

Our water pressure had dropped dramatically last week. To water-systems repairmen, pressure problems nearly always implicate the well pump. Replacing a well pump costs $1500.

The hard part about replacing well pumps is this: they’re usually buried 100' below ground. Pulling a pump means having one guy haul it up, 20' at a time, while a second guy disassembles the water pipe that gets pulled out of the ground as the pump rises. Pipes are PVC, which is good, as you don’t need 3 men to carry a 20' length. Still, they’re unwieldy, flopping around in the branches and power lines through the hole cut in the roof of the wellhouse. It would be comical, if it didn’t cost so damn much.

We were fortunate: the pressure problem wasn’t due to a sick pump, but to two fractured couplings that caused all our water to squirt around inside the well rather than squirting up the pipe and out our showerhead in a refreshing, invigorating, pulsating, patented massage pattern.

So, once again, I am rinsed clean. I feel good. I even smell good. Of course, the repair bill hasn’t arrived yet.