When Your Well Runs Dry

She just had to have one. When the little woman and I became settled and in Seine a while back, she decided the water from the system in our crumbling old house was "hard" and "distasteful." Alright, then, I harvested more beets and squash to raise money to buy a new water-filtration-recycle-whatever-it's called system. Cost me an arm and a leg.

Things went fine with the new contraption for months until last night or, I should say, early this morning. At 3:00 a.m. we were awakened by an erratic, booming sound from our garage. We rushed to the kitchen, opened the door to the garage, and found the water-system cylinders a-shaking and a-squealing and a-belching. The whole thing was on the verge of doing something dreadful! What to do, what to do? We hadn't a clue.

Then I noticed that the meter or dial with the flashing red and yellow lights on it was in a countdown mode! It read "30" or so when we entered the garage, but now it was down to about "15." Dear Lord, it was about to explode, and take us and the garage with it! Jonka and I screamed! We ran back into the kitchen yelling for help! I pulled her with me under the table for some protection. We looked at each other between screams. She babbled something about being sorry for having fed me tiny bits of rat poison in my food years ago. I babbled something about being sorry for never having told her my second middle name is Clarence. We briefly stared at each in silence, then both burst again into tears and screams as we hugged each other in the dwindling few seconds of the countdown a few yards away.

Then it happened! The chugging, the puffing, the bellowing, the flashing lights on the giant water cylinder ceased. We left the table, slowly walked into the garage, and cautiously gazed at the tank. Its dial now read "3:15, Regeneration Cycle Complete." We looked at each other. I ran back into the kitchen, turned on the faucet---everything was working fine. Without saying another word, we returned to bed. Well, Jonka did. I couldn't sleep---stayed up and watched most of "The Poseidon Adventure" on tv.