Not Exactly Boiling Over

Given my tendency to complain about even the smallest of inconveniences, I should be raging right now. After all, since Saturday, we haven't had potable (love that word) water here in Waltham. A pipe burst near Weston this past weekend, interrupting our flow of filtered tap water. We now have pretty much pure pond water flowing through our taps.

That means that we (along with 2 million other people in the Boston area) have to boil water before using it for anything but a flush or a shower. Frankly, I do smell a bit like pond water these days after I emerge from the shower, and I've had pond-water hair for the last few days as well. I just boiled a pot of water to use for toothbrush-rinsing purposes, and we've been drinking bottled water procured on Saturday by my lovely wife, who got to the grocery store right after news of the burst pipe broke and bought lots of bottles of water before the masses descended upon local stores and picked them clean of eau en bouteille.

All of this sounds like a real hassle and a great opportunity to complain about Greater Boston's crumbling infrastructure, or maybe a chance to point out the odd circumstance of floods here in March followed by a water shortage in May. But the truth is that this whole water thing just hasn't been that big of a deal at our house. We haven't taken the City of Waltham up on its offer of free bottled water, but the city has done a pretty good job of distributing bottles to schools, old-folks homes and poorer neighborhoods. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of real suffering going on in Greater Boston at all--the authorities have (from what I can tell) done a good job of warning people about the drinking ban and getting clean water to those who can't afford it or who need it most.

Outside of occasionally forgetting to rinse my toothbrush with the water in the pitcher next to the bathroom sink and perpetually smelling (and feeling) a bit the way I do after a swim in Walden Pond, I haven't experienced any real inconveniences from this whole water emergency. And if we do get our regular tap water back within the next couple of days, as some officials are now predicting--well, that will be just great. So, instead of being boiling mad about our little water scenario, I guess you could say that I'm just plain boiling. And it's really not that big of a deal.