TheBanyanTree: One flush

[John Bailey]

Friday October 31, 2003

ONE FLUSH

"There's no water!" Graham observed, twiddling the tap at the kitchen sink.

"Yer wot?"

"I can't put it any other way. There's no ****** water in the tap!"

"Oh, ****** water. Now I getcha."

"Well, what do we do about it?"

"I'll phone the water board and see what's up."

It turned out that there was a burst water main, that they knew about it, 
were working on it, and supplies ought to be restored by 01:30.

"Do you trust them on that?" Graham asked.

"Don't be silly, of course I don't. I'll pop down to the supermarket and 
pick up some bottled water to see us through."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"No, you stay here on firework duty. I'll only be ten minutes."

And off I floated into the All Hallow's Eve night, pulling into the 
supermarket carpark just on the stroke of midnight.

The only wandering souls about were the kind of lost souls you get in 
all-night supermarkets any night of the year. I can't say I was much 
surprised at that. These days any sensitive soul would stay home out of the 
way of the fireworks, wandering drunks and erratic drivers that seem to be 
the Welsh way of aping the American celebration of the festival.

I picked up twenty litres of the cheapest bottled water and made my way 
back home, to the great relief of Graham and the two moggies.

"All well?" I asked.

"Yeah. I think the firework parties are finished now."

So we brewed coffee and sat down to watch one of the Halloween movies on 
TV. It ended with Jamie Lee Curtis cutting off Michael's head with a large 
fire axe, settling the issue until the next time. Quite a feat that, 
severing a head with one horizontal blow of an axe, but let's not be picky.

Just as we were brewing up our nightcaps the tap gave a gurgle, dribbled a 
bit, and then issued a normal stream of water. Out in the cloak room I 
could hear the cistern filling up merrily.

"What'll we do with all these bottles, then?" Graham asked.

"We'll use 'em up for drinking water. Take a sniff of the water out of the 
tap."

Sure enough, it was very heavily chlorinated, not something you could drink.

"Yuck," said Graham. "See what you mean."

"Thought so. It'll take a few hours to clear the mains. No harm done. At 
least we can flush the loo now."

And that was it, really. Nothing special, just a very small drama. And a 
reminder that for all the technical marvels of our age we're still only one 
flush of the loo away from earth closet living.


--
John Bailey   Carmarthenshire, Wales
journal of a writing man
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>