Last Friday afternoon, I was at home getting ready for my fall semester, working on some of the assignments that the school gave us to work on over the summer. The doorbell rang. I answered the door, even though I didn't want to (I don't like answering the door when I'm home alone) and there was an Atmos Energy guy standing on the porch. Well I hadn't called him...so I asked him what he was doing here. He said something about making routine checks in the neighborhood and that our gas source in the backyard needed some kind of insulation. "Ok" I said, and I showed him how to get to the backyard. He came back to the door about 20 minutes later and told me that we have a gas leak and he's going to have to shut off the gas. "What! What am I supposed to do!"He tells me that I have to call a plumber and get permits from the city of Dallas for the plumber to come. Once the plumber fixes the leak, I'll need to get an inspector to come out and approve the job, and then I can call this specific number and he'd come back to turn the gas on. Um...what...can you call my husband and tell him all that please? And how am I supposed to find a plumber and what kind of permits do I have to get? Do they work on the weekend? I was immediately afraid that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to deal with this. I mean, since when did I become an adult and become responsible for confusing things like this?
I thought it was joke at first. Maybe he was just pretending to be an Atmos Energy guy, but sure enough, my shower on Saturday morning was a little chilly. Sunday morning was worse. And so on and so forth. So Justin (my hero) found plumbers, and the plumbers got the permits...and now, here they are...digging up the yard that I spent all summer trying to grow. The plumbers also said they'd get the inspector to come out when they are finished. Yay! This might actually work. We may actually have hot water soon! And a heater! As if we NEED those things!
The whole experience has made me think a lot about what we need. As Americans, there's a standard of living that we consider, well, standard. We like to have roofs over our heads, we like A/C in the summer and heat in the winter. We like food on the table at meal times, and in the pantry at snack times. We like close parking places, we like coffee in the morning. We like a new dress and pair of shoes for a social event. We like a soft mattress with sheets and a comforter and pillows to sleep on. We like taking hot showers to feel clean, and we like to wash (or dry clean) our clothes to wear throughout the day. Of that list...what do we REALLY need? What could we not live without? Short of food, I don't think there's anything in this paragraph that would result in death if denied.
The few cold showers that I've taken here at the house remind me of Nicaragua. We showered every day in lukewarm/cold water, and it felt great, and we were never really clean. We certainly never complained that we "needed" a hot shower, or a softer mattress, or A/C. Nobody else had those things, so why should we? I will say that we had great Nicaraguan coffee every morning though!! Then we come back here, and we complain about little things that don't really matter. We think we need things because we want them. And I think it's ok to want them...but the problem comes when we think we need them and we don't appreciate them anymore. This is a hard concept to focus on all the time. We get used to the things we have.
I'd like to give a shout-out to all the hot showers that I used this past week...and may need to use again next week if this is more than a one-day project. Thanks so much to the Weinmann's, 24HourFitness, Tami and William Spencer and the Tom Landry Center. I have very much appreciated the hot water in your bathrooms/locker-rooms this week!
Addition to blog 3 hours later:
After a long day of work...here is our brand new gas line!!
And here is the 2 feet deep trench through our backyard...oh well, I didn't like the grass anyways!
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