Coleridge's Dream

Something that happens periodically around an apartment building like mine is that they make repairs. It doesn't always happen in a timely and perfect fashion, but when I consider how it goes by comparison with repairs that I would make, I have to be very lenient. Really, it's a fine situation, and what kind of life would it be if things were perfect? Now, one area in which they work prodigiously to keep things in order is the plumbing.

Naturally, to fix the plumbing you have to shut the water off. I don't know much about that, which is perhaps made obvious by my puzzlement over why it is necessary to deny the entire building water in order to service a localized area. I must assume that there is some practical consideration, for they cannot do what they do out of some perverse desire to antagonize tenants. The point is that the needs of the few often outweigh the good of the many here.

You always hate to come home to a notice tacked on the door. They're supposed to give at least a day's notice before they go and do something like shut off the water or test all the building's smoke alarms, one after the other. Now, it's risky to treat every word of a notice as if it is the gospel. The times listed for a shut-of are rather flexible, I've found, and exact nature of the thing that they are giving you notice for may change.

At any rate, one must persevere through a shutoff. I do my utmost to do everything I might want to do with water before the stated time, just in case that holds true. I do all my bathroom business, you may be sure of that. I make my coffee, although really I ought to shy away from laxatives and diuretics in such a situation. Well, if need looms during a shutoff, that's just one more excellent reason to visit one's local public library.