SO, OG... you should be glad you didn't come down here this past weekend.

Well, I'm not. I missed seeing the old troll.

And I'm sure he knows it, Dolly.

So, what'd you do to chase him off?

Well... nothing. The business that would have brought him this way got postponed.

A likely story.

Be that as it may be, that was just an opening gambit. This post really isn't about Og.

'Cept for that and the title.

'Cept for them. Right.

So, what is this post about?

Well, here at Casa d' Alger, we're having new water service put in.

Do tell!

Got up to visit the john and get a drink of water at about 4:30 or so Sunday morning. Noticed that the water pressure was down. The toilet flushed OK, but the tank didn't seem to be refilling as fast as it ought to be. I felt the faucet in the sink and it was vibrating and I could hear water running -- distantly -- in the pipes. And in my half-awake stupor, thought, "Somebody's running water from our pipes. The bastards. Too damned cheap to buy their own, they have to steal ours."

Then I realized that, in order for somebody to be stealing our water, they'd have to be INSIDE the house, as the hose spigot is turned off at an inside valve. Figured I'd better go downstairs and see who this intrepid water thief was.

Got to the bottom of the stairs only to find the cats cowering in the living room and the merry sound of a rather vigorous fountain coming from the utility room.

A few frantic moments of opening the access hatch later, I discovered -- well...

... ::cue the effects music::

Last year about this time, in the midst of all the electrical-roofing-buildinginspecting stuff, we learned that there was a leak in our supply line. Actually, the electrician discovered it when he undid the ground clamp and the pipe behind it started an arterial spurt -- only without the pumping action.

So we called our Old Faithful plumber. (That's the one you call to fix geysers, see...) He came out and pronounced it an easy fix. Had to go find an animal called a "lead pack" and it would be good as new. Well... almost.

Those of you who have done modern plumbing as relates to lead piping will hear the sound of pennies dropping right there. The "lead pack" thing being part clue on its mother's side, y'see.

Old Faithful came back from his parts hunt and announced that he had found "the last lead pack in the city" and proceeded to apply it to the problem.

Then discovered -- or realized -- that the leak was SO CLOSE to the concrete floor ...

I think it bears the insertion of a parenthetical note right about here to explain why the service pipe was coming in through the floor -- as (notionally at least) plumbers wasn't any stupider in the 1890s than today, so why would they run a service line through a concrete floor -- knowing it was like to go bad some day down the line, and why borrow trouble?

And they answer is: they didn't. They ran a pipe into a room with a dirt floor and didn't really fasten it to much of anything. Then a couple of yuppie idiots came in and decided they wanted to pave that dirt floor over and turn this erstwhile coal bin into a laundry room.

Y'see.

And the yuppies found a rather shady (And cheap -- did I mention cheap? Whell I shoulda.) contractor who was more than willing to encase a lead water service line in 4 inches of concrete. Saved all kinda money on plumbers to run proper lines, it did.

... that he really didn't have much there to work with, so to speak, and the repair was going to be a ... temporary exigency at best.

I think that's "expediency," Alger.

You tell it your way, Dolly, I'll tell it mine.

Went straight to guns on that one, eh?

Seemed appropriate. And the plumber?

He made the fix, and henceforth our premises were indeed much drier, and we made "someday" plans to have new water service run.

Someday came Sunday at 4:30 AM.

I woke SWMBO. She found the number of our Old Faithful plumber. He came and turned off the service. (And I shop-vacced up the water.) And we were back in bed in an hour.

Go through a day -- just one day -- without running water in your house. Some might consider it a luxury, but I call it necessity.

Through the good graces of a neighbor with a handle hose spigot, we didn't really have to, although we did skip showers Sunday morning. Around about 6:00-ish, we got at least some pressure restored.

And...

Fortunately, the plumber was able to get the stars to align -- with permissions from the water works and indicators of gas lines and suchlike -- and get the materials and crew and prior commitments all squared away -- and we'll be getting a brand-new trench in our front garden, as well as a 3" hole in our "basement" wall, and a pit for the meter in the front yard, and new water service.

Monday.

Whatta country!

Indeed, Dolly. Try doing that in your Third World Worker's Paradise.

Prospairity 'n' n-trippenoorial capitolizzum does has upsides.

So I will be home from the patch factory in my capacity as sidewalk superintendent. Should be fun.

At least, we won't have to shut off the water.

...

Well, we did. But that was a minor hassle. One of that thousand cuts so often spoke of in prose and verse. Incompetent water works inspector who managed to get it all wrong and cost the plumbers two hours (of a three- -- then five-man crew) before a more-competent fellow came around and set it all to rights. The wide swath the necessary trenching cuts through a yard and the narrowness of our yard -- the two insersecting in the perennials bed. Our lawn is a cloddy-brown desert. Rain is predicted. And so-forth.

No good pictures. Not sorry.