essentials

Yesterday I got back home in the middle of the night, tired and sweaty after a long day at work that was followed by drinks in a couple of pubs. In the hall of my building I noticed bright red fire extinguishers and shiny escape route signs that I hadn't seen before. Someone must have stapled them to the walls while I was out. Nice, I thought, now I know which way to run when a fire licks at my life. Front door, in case you were wondering.

Then I got into my flat and – at the risk of giving out too much information – went straight to the loo for important business. When I was done, I realized that there was no water. The cistern emptied itself with a tired gurgle and wouldn't refill. The tap was dry. I don't buy bottled water and don't have a pitcher in the fridge. I was thirsty from drinking too much and needed a shower, but there wasn't any water in the house.

It is in situations like this one that one realizes what's truly important in life. Water is prime among those things, but it's so taken for granted in our world of ignorant affluence that the shock is almost physical when there isn't any. If the boiler breaks and there's no hot water and no heat, so what? It's not the end of the world. If a fuse blows and the lights go out and the radio, one adjusts quickly. Trains and buses seem essential but are delayed and canceled almost daily. Newspapers come and go. But stop the flow of water for five minutes and utter misery sets in.

I was miserable, thirstier by the minute and stinkier and sweatier now that I knew I couldn't clean my hands and face. Discomfort grew quickly. I couldn't even brush my teeth. Out on a limb, I called Thames Water, my supplier, and was more than a bit surprised when someone picked up, an actual person. He didn't know why I didn't have water. I had paid my bill and no disruption, excessive leakage or broken pipe had been reported in my area. He said he'd send an emergency responder before 4:10. It was shortly after midnight at that time and it didn't really occur to me that he was talking about the same night.

I went out to buy some water. Luckily, the nearest 24-hour off-license is only two minutes up the road. I got a 5-liter jug for two quid, imported for my convenience from Turkey, and started contemplating the post I would surely commit to my blog in due course. It would focus on the frequently neglected importance of water, the privileged life we lead with cold, clean water always gushing from the tap, and the economics of drilling a well in Anatolia and then shipping tons of water to rainy England for good profit. I got back to my flat, washed my hands and face in a teapot and brushed my teeth. Happiness and comfort restored, I went to bed, deferring all worries until the next morning.

Literally five minutes later – I hadn't even decided which eye to close first – the harsh rattle of my doorbell jolted me to my feet. From the window I saw a white Thames Water van and a person with a poker to check the water supply. To say I was speechless wouldn't do it justice. I was stupefied. How do you achieve a twenty-minute response time in a city of eight million? At half past midnight?

The Thames Water person didn't think much of it. She just did her job, uncovering the underground meter cave and braving spiders and unknown critters of the night to realize that there wasn't anything wrong. "It's inside your property", she said. "You need to get a plumber." Then she came inside and checked the pipes and the valves. All was fine, but there was still no water. The only thing left was the stopcock outside my flat, high up on the wall and hard to reach. When she fiddled with it, my toilet's cistern started noisily refilling, easily the most beautiful sound of the week.

It could be argued that I could have checked (and fixed) this myself, but one of the prerogatives of renting is an utter lack of responsibility. Something breaks? Let someone else take care of it. Make a call and the problem will be fixed. That sounds good in theory and gives me profound peace of mind, but in the middle of a duh!-situation, it risks making me look like a complete fool. The Thames Water woman was happy to help and didn't see it this way. We both agreed that the fool was the person that had closed the stopcock in the first place, in all likelihood the person that also installed the fire safety equipment, though why one action would lead to the other will forever remain a mystery.