The Magic of Running Water

I hope that someday I get the chance to meet and thank the inventor who discovered the magic of hot and cold running water. If I do, it will mean for sure that I made it to heaven. At MY house, this inventor is the angel who is responsible for the glowing success of my washing machine, three toilets, one shower, two bathtubs, a dishwasher and four indoor water faucets, including the precious one attached to my kitchen sink. Oh . . . I forgot the outdoor faucets with their network of sprinkler heads. I hope I didn’t forget any others, but I wouldn’t put it past me, because hot and cold running water is a feature of my life that I particularly love to take for granted.

I was reminded of my well-established habit of ingratitude while preparing dinner for our New Year’s Day celebration. For some reason, the water faucet connected to my kitchen sink had developed a hiccup. Every time I tried to turn the water on, I had to turn the vegetable sprayer on first so that the water faucet would engage. It took at least two extra seconds to do this each time, and those two extra seconds were starting to get on my nerves because I don’t know how many ba-zillion times I had to turn the faucet on. It was a lot.

Somewhere in between the preparations for the meal, I took a nice hot bath, did three batches of laundry, filled my water glass several times, ran the dishwasher, made a few trips to answer the call of nature and washed my hands enough to keep the lotion companies in business. Every time I did, I wondered about the mothers, fathers and children around the world who don’t enjoy this treasured luxury and are inconvenienced a lot more than two seconds each time they need water.

I suppose that in the broad scheme of life, water is a necessity while hot and cold running water are to be considered "extras." Still . . . I’m grateful to live in America, where this advantage is just a simple fact of life. I wish everybody could.