6 Days Without Hot Water

For the past 6 days, our apartment has been without any hot water. We were able to shower last Friday afternoon with warm water, but by the time Saturday came around, I had to settle for quick showers under cold water.

At first I figured the water was cold because a lot of the other tenants in the apartment complex had decided to shower at the same time as me. Water temperature infrequency  is not uncommon for me, having grown up in the Boston area. In fact, I remember when I was 12 years old, we lived in a house where you couldn't flush the toilet, brush your teeth, wash your hands, or do the dishes at the same time that somebody was taking a shower (doing so would have resulted in the scalding of a poor, unsuspecting showering victim). However, when our apartment managers came around on Sunday to apologize for the lack of hot water, and to ensure that they were doing all that they could to fix the problem as soon as possible, it became clear that my theory was incorrect.

It is now Wednesday, and we are fast approaching a whole week without hot water. At this point, I'm especially grateful that we decided to use paper cups and plates, so we don't even have to tackle the issue of washing dishes. However, by the time Monday came around I was especially sick of running around taking semi-quick showers at other people's apartments (Thanks, Dana and Luiggi!), and seeing as not showering was not much of an option considering I'm continuing my Insanity workout challenge Chris thankfully surprised me with a solution (which was most needed since my hair was beginning to get so oily that it was becoming a single hair-strand-like entity).

I've been coming home after my workout for the past two days to find several pots and pans full of boiling water over the oven and our bathtub filled to the middle with freshly boiled water (Now, don't worry, it wasn't scalding hot by the time I got in). The most astonishing thing was that Chris was creative enough to create a makeshift bathtub plug from the end of a yogurt container (up until this point we had never been able to use the bathtub because the plug didn't work).

It reminded me of a scene off of Eat, Pray, Love. If you've seen the movie or read the book, you'll know the one I'm talking about: Elizabeth finds herself in an Italian villa with no plumbing and a bathtub filled only about a quarter of the way by the maid with recently boiled water for her bath. When she quizzically looks up at the maid, the maid explains with irritation and broken English: "Everything important gets cleaned!" And then she walks away shaking her head, complaining in Italian. I love that scene, and I could totally relate with poor Elizabeth, even though it was a very creative solution to our problem.

Six days into this hot water depraved week, I'm delightfully surprised about our ability to come up with creative solutions to problems; and I've actually enjoyed the excuse to indulge in much needed bubble baths. Still, I'm looking forward to the day our hot water will be turned back on...