The following is a mildly bizarre but true event in the life of a homeowner…

It was Friday, 10/09/09.  A month prior was a great day; a month and a day later was sequentially wonderful; that day was just weird.

The Board of Water and Light (BWL) flushed the hydrant at the corner that morning.  Imagine my surprise when the upstairs toilet and sink filled with nasty brown water.  I did not remember for half an hour or so that I had a load of laundry running.  Good thing it was darks, and good thing it was Allan’s t-shirts and old stuff; it was all brownish. The dishwasher was done by that time, so we had clean dishes. 

I called BWL and the nice lady said to just let a faucet run for 20 minutes or so and that should clear it out.  I called back after an hour and a half when the flow of brownish-red gunk was worse than when it started.  The second nice lady with an undetermined accent said, “Oh, you must only have the lowest faucet in the house on just a trickle, otherwise it will stir up the water in your loins.”  So, I asked, “shouldn’t I just turn the water off and let it settle?”  “Well, no, that way you will never get the sediment out of your loins.”  I didn’t know what to say.

Twenty minutes later two BWL technician types (they had a truck and left the flashing light on while in the driveway) arrived.  They took a sample of the water, tossed in some chemical, and declared the water free of bacteria.  I suspected they made that up because it sounded like a line from NCIS.  They also said, “that red stuff is iron from the pipes, and here are two bottles of Iron Away (or Red Be Gone, or some other dismissive name).  Just follow the directions and you can use it on your load of laundry or toilet or sinks or whatever to get rid of the redness. And just let your faucet run until Monday. Any faucet you want, just let it run.”

“Monday?” I asked.

They explained that they had just taken a meter reading and would come back on Monday to get another reading, and they promised we wouldn’t have to pay for any water or sewage charges from then until Monday. 

 “Well, what about the suspected junk in the hot water heater?”  The answer: “since the water is free, go ahead and run several loads of hot water through the washer and flush it out of the hot water heater.”

So we let the water run in the basement sink Friday night and Saturday night.  The laundry was clean Sunday, so we turned the water off.  When the BWL fellow returned, he tested the water again and pronounced it good.  It would have been a better test if he had taken a drink of the water.