Just over two weeks ago, our water heater broke.
For reasons that I will not bore you with because it’s a long story, we are still living without hot water. A family of four plus a mother-in-law. The family of four includes two children who have a close one-on-one relationship with mud.
Bath time takes twice as long as it used to. Instead of simply running the bath for the kids, we have to dump buckets of cold water into the tub, and boil huge pots of water on the stovetop that then get added to the cold water so that the kids won’t go into shock when they get in.
What’s that you’re asking? Oh, why don’t we just run cold water from the tap? Because for whatever reason, the lack of water in the hot water tank has completely messed up the water pressure on the tap in the bathroom.
On the one hand, I am glad this did not happen in the middle of winter. Because then, heating the bath water to a bearable level would take three times as long. On the other hand, though, in winter you can get away with taking fewer baths. During the dog days of summer, however, when the temperatures are well over a hundred degrees, regular baths are kind of important.
The baths just take care of the kids. Gerard has a shower in his shop, and I have to traipse off the gym in order to avoid being one of The Unwashed. My mother-in-law goes to her sister’s house.
Once everyone is clean, we then have to deal with the dishes. Running the dishwasher is out of the question because it wouldn’t do the job very well, and because it’s not even connected to the cold water anyway. So dishes have to be washed by hand, and kettles full of boiling water keep having to be added to the water in the kitchen sink. Instead of taking ten minutes to clear the dishwasher and reload it, I am now having to spend up to an hour on this nonsense.
How on earth did people five hundred years ago get anything done?
Well. While the men were out conquering whatever they were conquering, the women were staying home and taking care of it all. It’s not like they had to spend two hours a day on the subway getting to and from a full-time job at the office. And besides, avoiding body odour wasn’t such an issue with them. They had annual baths every July, and the entire village shared a single tub of water for the occasion.
Apparently – apparently – our hot water will be reinstated within two or three days. I’ll believe it when I see it.
In the meantime, I just have to make the most of what I have. And drink wine to stop myself from going completely round the bend.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dustpuppy/5371295/)
When I first moved to Peru, the house we lived in didn’t have hot water – in fact, many houses don’t have hot water, and many that do only have it in the bathroom. We didn’t have a bathtub either (still don’t, actually!) just a shower. I did like you and boiled a couple pots of water and dumped them into a washtub and used that to bath the kids, dumping water over their head with a saucepan!
(BTW – I came here from RGQ because I wanted to share your Amy Winehouse post on Twitter – you’ve got a great blog. )
It’s great to see RGQ readers jumping in! Thanks!
Our hot-waterless status is set to continue for at least another few days. Just think – there are people who VOLUNTARILY go without it when they go camping!
Thanks for reading and commenting!