The Big Valley

Greetings,

Well, it is day six in what is now known as “the copper pipe fiasco of 2012.” Let me back up a few days. We walked into our house at approximately 7 p.m., and I noticed there was a slight “squish” in the wood floor. My mind is not real quick these days, but in a fraction of a second, two scenarios were going through my head. Either my Great Dane had “the mother of all accidents”, or there was major leak going on in the house.

Upon further investigation, it was determined that a copper pipe under our concrete slab had ruptured. The only way to stop it was to shut off the water to our house. I have learned a couple things so far from this incident.

1. We are all creatures of habit. Have you ever forgotten your watch at home, but looked at your wrist 20 times to check the time? I know we have no water, but every single time I walk to the bathroom sink, I reach for the handle and turn it on.

2. Water is life. I never realized how much we depend on water. I now appreciate what the Pilgrims had to go through. My wife’s dream has come true, she always wanted to be a pioneer woman (she watched too many episodes of The Big Valley when she was younger and still thinks she has a chance of being Mrs. Nick Barkley).

We have washing dishes down to a science. I go down to the well and fill up old gallon jugs. Mrs. Barkley gets out the big pasta pot and boils the water I bring up from the well. We have a washing station and a rinsing station in different areas of the house. I am just waiting for Michael Landon to walk in from Little House on the Prairie and ask when “the vittles” are going to be ready.

We have no counter tops now. The kitchen cabinets have been ripped out because the water wicked up into the wood and drywall behind the cabinets. Soon the plumbers will come in and tear up the house with new pipes and shortly after that, the wood floors will be destroyed and replaced. I am so glad I decided to put a shower in my dental office when I built it 6 years ago. I wasn’t even sure it was going to work because I have never used it. My original plan was to jog at lunch for 20 minutes, then take a shower before I saw patients (Right. Like that was going to happen—see my blog titled “Resolutions” dated January 9, 2012.)

The good news is that the shower works fine. The bad news is that, I barely fit in the thing. I am not a very big guy, but this shower is so small that I can barely move. If I slightly lift up my arms, I hit the walls. Because of the space limitation, I tend to concentrate a lot in the chestal area when showering. [Is chestal a word?]

I realize things could be a lot worse. As we have been going through this ordeal, my daughter’s friend was in a bad car accident and is now clinging to life in a hospital room. I guess having to walk to the well and get jugs of water is not as inconvenient as I first thought.

Another thing I am thankful for is our pool. We may not be able to drink the water, but it’s great for flushing toilets! In my house right now, it’s kind of hard to hide the fact that you are about to use the rest room when you are walking down the hallway sloshing a big bucket of water. So, for at least another week, we will be living The Big Valley life and I will keep seeing my patients with my really, really, really clean chest.

Have a great week.

Scott