Friday, January 29, 2010

Water, Profanity, and Beer

Photo: Navin Thakur, Flickr Creative Commons

"Jake, get up. We're running out of water."

"Shit, did it freeze last night? I didn't realize it was supposed to freeze. God dammit."

Yes, I really do talk like this in real life, especially when I'm irritated. I'm really not surprised that when little Gandhi was playing in a book store and the toy train derailed that he started saying "My train came off the tracks. Dammit. Oh dammit." The mothers around me looked on in horror at the hideousness their little daughters had just been exposed to and I had to get on to the little guy even though I wanted to laugh. Jesus, people. It's just a word and not even a word that really means anything bad. I do have to say, though, that if he'd learned it from me, I suspect the language he chose would have been harsher. I'm not usually satisfied with a little dammit. That's more his mom coming out. I'm more of an all or nothing kind of guy. I'm either going to keep it clean or drop a fuck. That's how I roll, bitch. I have to express myself and my emotions match my frame. Ain't no dammit going to get out all that rage.

But getting back to the water thing, I roll out of bed earlier than normal knowing that I may have to make the drive out to my parents' house for a shower. My body really digs the production of lipids so I can't go without a shower in the morning or I'll look like I just came from an Orthodox baptism. You know, oily.

I turn on the hot water in the shower. It's coming out, but with only half the pressure at most, so I shower more quickly than normal expecting the water to run out while I'm still soaping. I bathe in shifts. Wash a small area, rinse the area, move on to the next area. The water never stops. I can't figure this out. It's 44 fucking degrees outside. I know good and well the pipes didn't freeze. Water is obviously still flowing. If the pump wasn't working at all, the water would have stopped long ago as we drained the tank out at the well. I have no idea what the problem is. It's like my house has an enlarged prostate.

I brush my teeth, get dressed, and eat breakfast before I even bother going outside to see what the problem is. I know I won't have a clue even if the problem is obvious. It's not even cold this morning. Maybe the ants, who've been pushing their mounds up out of the ground trying to escape the water table just inches below the grass blades, decided to play chicken with the electrical box. They've done it before. Certain species of ants seem to be drawn to electronic suicide like dogs to antifreeze and that urban legend version of lemmings to ocean cliffs. I look. I poke around. I don't see anything. I call my dad. He's retired and needs something to do. I'll let him come look. He actually has some competence as a fix-it man and if he can't figure it out, he'll know who to call.

Even if he doesn't get it fixed today while I'm at work, I don't care what the problem with the well is. It will get fixed eventually and I got almost $2,000 back from my student loan that I didn't spend on tuition this year and I only spent $60 on books. I'll even have the money to pay for repairs, borrowed from my future self of course. I'm an American. That's just how money works for us. Even if it's not fixed when I get home, I am still driving to Atlanta and drinking me some beer this weekend. No way I'm going to let weak water pressure keep me from some cask ale. Beer may not cure all ills, but I like to drink it.

7 comments:

Mickey said...

Nice post.

So you'll be in town this weekend? Let me know if you have a moment to spare for us little people. I might even get back to you this time.

Julie said...

No way. If Duck Tales showed lemmings rushing toward a cliff, it must be true.

A Free Man said...

And this is a beautiful fucking illustration of why you shouldn't quit blogging. This is some serious damn writing and when you can spin a post like this out of the mundanity (is that a word) of day to day life, you've got it.

Jacob said...

I should probably mention that this post was written partly to experiment with Rassles' writing style. I should add her to my blog roll if I'm interested enough with her style to write something inspired by it. Of course I don't see this as a perfect copy of her style, but it wasn't supposed to be perfect.

Courtney said...

I enjoyed this post too.

Are you back to calling E "Gandhi?" I remember you calling him Mahatma when K was pregnant, but that made sense because he was only as big as a grain of rice then. I"m not sure he has anything in common with Gandhi anymore. Unless he goes on a hunger strike.

Jacob said...

I think Gandhi is going to be a good code name for him, not because of any actual personality or physical traits, but because it's a reference to an earlier nickname that I no longer use for it. It'll stick because of the connection, but isn't so obvious to give it away if someone's trying to Google me.

I'm still working on one for K.

Sid said...

Ha! I love Rassles.

You're the second blogger I've read who has mention Lemmings off a cliff. You should read The Daily Smoke's blog.