Our water pipe sprang a leak,
and we had to shut the water off to the house.
Because of other priorities,
it will be nearly a week before we can set aside time to fix the leak.
Feels good to have 63 cases of bottled water on hand!
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This story starts a month or two ago,
when our water heater rusted out, and we replaced it.
During the process of draining and removing the water heater,
we noticed a pinhole leak in the copper cold water pipe feeding water to the water heater,
and we plugged it by a method we thought would be good enough for a pinhole leak.
Wrong.
This past Sunday evening,
the head of the house, my brother-in-law,
heard the sound of a leak,
that same old pinhole leak.
So, he shut the water to the house, off.
Tuesday morning,
he turned the water on again, just long enough to fill the bathtub,
so we can use buckets of bathtub water to flush the toilet.
In case you don’t already know,
a toilet will flush real well,
if you pour about three or four gallons of water, from a bucket, quickly, into the toilet bowl.
I bought extra buckets Monday night, after work, and filled them with water,
to give us a few flushes,
not realizing he would fill the tub the next morning.
And, of course, many of you know this drill:
If it’s yellow,
let it mellow;
if it’s brown,
flush it down.
We filled the tub and buckets again Thursday.
But the star of the show, is the 63 cases of bottled water we have on hand.
If we need to rinse off any dishes,
no problem.
We can rinse off our faces,
and get wash cloths wet,
to clean up after eating,
or clean our bodies in various places.
I’m rather hot blooded,
so, Tuesday, I stood in the tub of cold water,
and dipped up water with an empty water bottle,
and gave myself a pretty good shower.
Not lathering up with soap, then rinsing,
but, rather, just rinsing, which was good enough for me.
Got out of the tub and dried off real well.
Thursday I did the same, but this time, used a little shower soap.
Keep in mind,
prepping is insurance:
you put time and money into it,
and,
when you need it,
it pays off.
Social Security is insurance.
I paid my premiums for 44 years,
and now I get money, each month, by direct deposit.
That Social Security insurance is paying off.
As part of our prepping insurance,
we have been stacking up cases of bottled water,
gradually building up our supply,
and now it pays off, because we hardly need to do anything differently,
even though the water is shut off.
We can take our time fixing the leak,
and turning the water back on.
Also, we have plenty of socks, underwear, shirts, pants, etc., to last two weeks or more,
so we have no need to get out cash and go to the laundromat.
Also, we have plenty of money in savings,
to buy the items to fix the pipes.
We just filled the water dish for the little dog, from a bottle of water.
We have plenty of food.
It’s a cold night here, but we are snuggled in, cozy and warm.
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