How to Deal When the Well Pump Goes Out

Apparently, my house does not feel that it got enough attention through the furnace and toilet episodes, because on Wednesday as I was running water for the breakfast dishes, the water stopped.  You know, it is a depressing feeling to stand there and watch the stream of water get thinner and thinner and then disappear.  And I heard the well pump try to kick on and then…stop.  More depressing feelings.

So, no water at my house on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning.  However, since I am from Dillingham where things routinely don’t work, I have excellent coping skills.  Here is my list of tips for living with no water:

1.  Be sure that it is winter when the water goes out because then you will have lots of snow to melt, strain, and boil for washing dishes and faces and pouring down the toilet to flush it.  Don’t drink the boiled (for at least ten minutes to kill germs, please) snow water if you can help it because it tastes like trees and swamp and probably has bird poop in it.

2.  DO NOT DRAIN DISHWATER.  Scoop it back out of the sink with your trusty empty yogurt container that you have also been using to scoop snow into the pots for melting and boiling.  Use to flush the toilet so that you are not reduced to driving to a convenience store every time you need to use a toilet which is not so convenient in the middle of the night even though the convenience store is open.  Or, water any plants that are looking wilty and sad.  The plants don’t know that your well pump is out.

3.  Have nice friends who will let you shower at their house because the amount of snow you’d have to melt, strain, and boil for a bath is Mt. Everest-esque.  As in, even when snow is smashed into the melting and boiling pans, you’ll get a very non-inspiring couple of inches of water out of it.

4.  Try to think of your inability to use the washer as a laundry holiday!  Celebrate with a bottle of water from the convenience store since you have taken to stopping there every day on your way home from work since they have toilets that flush.

5.  Speaking of toilets, you’ll need about a gallon of water to flush them.  Yes, this is a gross process.  Be thankful that you do not have to use an outhouse and get over it.  Pour the water directly and fairly quickly into the toilet bowl (not into the tank).

6.  Eat things like crackers and cheese that don’t require water for preparation.  You will hate the crackers and cheese because you HAVE to eat them.  Cope by eating chocolate.

7.  Have lots of Trident gum so that you only have to brush your teeth with bottled water twice a day.

8.  Use antibacterial wipes to “wash” your hands.  This will also feel gross and weird.  Try not to think about it.

9.  Be very, very, very nice to the guy who just installed your new toilet and fixed your furnace because it turns out that he can fix well pumps too!  LOVE THAT GUY.  If you don’t have one, you can’t have mine.  Don’t even ask.  Not even as a joke.  I’ve been living without water for four days and am not in a jokey mood.

10.  Read Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder or Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer to be reminded of much harder life could be.  Little House on the Prairie is nonfiction.  Be VERY THANKFUL that your house doesn’t have a time machine to malfunction and send you back THERE.