Gloom and Doom

The world looks gloomy today. Here I sit with my laptop defrosting my thighs as my feet dangle from a foot rest in front of the gas burning fire. The gas fire breathes louder singeing my cotton socks as the drafts billow through the cottage. Chatter of rain hitting our roof repeatedly turns angry and violent throughout the day. Outside for the last 3 days gusts of wind continuously slingshot the tree canopies back and forth while the rain pours down on them. The concrete jungle outside turned into a lake of continuously rippling murky water.

As I take refuge from the vicious skies and abundance of water building up around me I feel calm and dehydrated. With the excessive amount of rain a water main burst right in front of our cottage. So for almost 72 hours my cottagemates and I look outside at fresh water falling from the skies and switch our faucets on to see a strong flow of sediment and insect infested yellowish brown water.

Mom’s famous words in Mexico, “Don’t Drink the Water!” speak to me while I reside in the European Union. In Egypt and Mexico I drank the water and not surprisingly saw a strong flow of sediment and insect infested yellowish brown looking water too. I learned my lesson, but with no milk left, our bottled water reserves exhausted, and only a bottle of dehydrating repulsive Stroh’s Austrian hard liquor and a diuretic Smithwhicks Irish beer remaining I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should just drink the water. I mean over the last 5 hours the water looks clear and the small sand, dirt, and bug particles only jump out at you when the water sits still in a glass and the particles keep swirling around.

I take water, like my family, friends, and Jinette, for granted until it’s not available. I mean thankfully the toilet still flushes even though it looks contaminated before I use it. Other than that though, my teeth caked with plaque, dry throat, and body coated with grime reiterate how important water is to my basic survival.

Unless the water runs clean in the next couple hours I’m going to need to pay for a cab into Spiddal with my rancid teeth, strong body odor, and dirty clothes to get bottles of water. I’m going to go do that before I run dry, literally.