Ugh.

This past Monday, it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the last holiday that M. and I would share together before I had to return to school. It was a beautiful, sunny day; it was warm, unlike most of the break. Moreover, I awoke with a sense of determination, of purpose--I was actually going to run errands. I mean, that's some motivation.

And then I took a shower.

Getting in, I noticed that the water wasn't running with its usual level of pressure. Hmm, I thought. Then, as I was washing my face, the back of my head--eyes closed--I felt it getting stronger. As I opened my eyes, I noticed something about the water...

...it was BROWN. And, no, not because of me--it was coming out brown. "M.!" I yelled. "Does this water, uh, look RIGHT to you?" She had to admit that, no, it didn't. It also brought back all sorts of memories from her mission, when, in one area, the water was always brown. (She felt dirtier after a shower than before.)

I filled up the tub just to make sure:



Yup. Definitely brown.

I felt slightly filmy. I wanted to take, well, a shower, but that was out of the question. I called the apartment management. (No help.) I called the city. (No help.) I talked to the maintenance guys. (BIG no help. One guy just started rambling about the necessity of matches.)

The maintenance guys (when I could understand them) suggested opening up all of the water lines in the house to try and flush out the dirt. However, there was so much dirt in the system that, every time I tried it, I just got more dirt. A neighbor confirmed the same thing was happening to him.

So M. and I sat. And sat. And sat. I never did make it to Wal-Mart.

The next day, I was able to shower at a friend's house, because the water was still bad. Yesterday, the water cleared up enough that we were willing to chance it. Today, I think it'll be okay, but I'm still not drinking it.

Man. I mean, I don't want to sound like this was the end of the world--goodness knows that the situation in Haiti is about ninety-billion times worse than this--but it really taught us how much water we'd need in an emergency. (The answer: A LOT MORE.) Sure, we could have stretched the water that we had a little more than we did, but we'd still need more. Lesson learned.