Nor any drop to drink.

Recently, in the greater Boston area, we had what some would call a water "crisis".  Other more reasonable people, or anyone born in a country with a name that is not the United States of America, might refer differently to the events.  They might, just by way of example, mention "that inconvenience" we experienced around Boston, with a dismissive waive of their hand. 

Somewhere, around one of the W towns (A is for apple, B is for Bunny, and if you live around Boston, W is for Wicked Rich), a water main broke.  Although I pored over those Richard Scarry books as a kid, with all those busy people who were actually busy bunnies, and pigs, in busy town, showing you the town's inner workings, I really can't tell you much about plumbing, or pipes.  I know they bring us clean water, and they take dirty water away.  I have vague notions about "from where" and "to where".  Reservoirs, I suppose, and sewage treatment plants, respectively.  (As a complete aside, why "sewage treatment plants"?  Why not sewage disposal plants, or sewage management facilities?  What are we treating the sewage for?   Depression?  "Doc, I'm feeling like crap..." ).  Bottom (no pun intended) line, something broke somewhere, and lo, the clean water would not come.  Some 20 Boston area towns had running water that we could not drink, unless we boiled it first, to kill off any bacteria that might swimming through the dirty water they were sending into our homes.  Kill or be killed.  It was Lord of the Flies time in New England. 

The first sign that we had lost our collective minds came through online email forums and social networking sites.  Everyone had questions.  How long to boil the water?  Could we run our dishwashers?  Our washing machines?  How could it be true that it was OK to shower, but handwashing must be chased with hand sanitizer?  What if we opened our eyes in the shower?  Or water got in our ears?  Could we water our lawns?  I don't suggest that the questions were silly.  Of course they weren't.  They were perfectly natural, and some were even welcomed by the rest of us who hadn't thought to ask them. 

You know that feeling, though, that you get on the first gorgeous day of spring, after a long, cold winter?  You head out for a walk, to soak in the sweet sunshine and to inhale the warm air.  Then, someone says, "wow!  listen to the birds!" ... and suddenly, listening to the birds is all it seems that you can do.  You hear their songs, and their trills, and you rejoice with them, that spring is here!  But you begin to notice that there are so very many of them.  And all of them are singing, at once, trying to drown one another out with their own happy songs.  Must they sing so loudly?  Where in the hell did so many birds suddenly come from?  And then you start running down the street, hands over ears, screaming "would someone SHUT THEM UP already?!"  Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, that's how I felt as I continued to read the local news stories and the yahoo group and facebook posts.  Oh!  I thought to myself.  Thank goodness I am paying attention.  These questions make sense!  And I need to listen to them!  Steadily, however, the volume climbed.  More thirsty town folk added their chirps to the rising cacophony.  As neighbors competed to lay claim to the catastrophe, and to make their own suffering heard, they grew louder, and more insistent.  The tenor of the questions changed, and the charges began to fly.  Why weren't we notified sooner?  Why weren't we notified BETTER?  How long would this last?  Were they telling us the truth?  Why weren't we better prepared? 

The madness reached a crescendo. There were people in the water aisles of every grocery store, liquor store, and gas station convenience mart, emptying the shelves of all sizes of Aquafina and Poland Springs.  A woman climbed onto her shopping cart to reach the top shelves, and began tossing water over the heads of the thirsty crowd, to her own family members, who waited on the perimeter to receive the goods, like hyenas circling the lions.   I watched the news stories, and tried to bury my head beneath my blankets to avoid the screaming birds of prey, as Tim quietly and humanely boiled a pot of tap water on our Kitchen Aid gas stove. 

The schools let us know, by reverse 9-1-1 calls to our homes, that our children could bring 16 oz water bottles to school.  Thus began more flapping and squawking.  Who was the school to tell us how much water our child could or could not bring to school?  The listserves and the facebook pages went berserk.   "If I want my child to drink purified water, I'll send as much water as I damned well please, Mr. Superintendent.  I didn't trample Mrs. O'Malley in Aisle 9 just to be told I couldn't anoint my offspring with the spoils!  Oh, and you will have hand sanitizer available for the kids to use after washing their hands, won't you?"  I contemplated the frustration, and the bravado, as I tried to chip the plaster of dried toothpaste from my toothbrush.  As it turns out , pouring a stream of boiled water over your toothbrush doesn't get it quite as clean as, say, running it under the tap.  On the other hand, you don't end up with e coli in your mouth, so seen in that light, brushing or sanding your teeth with a miniature brick is really a very small price to pay. 

A few days later, the "all clear" sounded.  Pipes were flushed, ice trays emptied and refilled, and all was once again well in the slowly thawing upper east coast.  The birds settled into their nests, lovingly attended to their chicks, and whispered to one another, "well, that really wasn't so bad".  The next few days were spent applauding ourselves, and each other, for the strength and calm that allowed us to weather the storm.  We crowed about how we checked in on elderly neighbors, and clucked about how quickly and efficiently the problem was resolved.  As we ripped apart the packaging on our new toothbrushes, the news anchors turned their attention to the oil leak that is currently poisoning the already suffering gulf coast.  Now there's a water problem.