Ah, the joys of summer. Skies are blue. Grass is green. The perfume of a thousand flowers fills the air.
And everywhere we hear the sound of mothers screaming, "You kids turn that water off!"
Few sounds are more nerve wracking than the intermittent whine of an outside water tap that's been commandeered by a bunch of children too young to water the lawn, wash the car, or hose down the driveway, let alone worry about water conservation.
Bare fingernails rasping on a blackboard seem downright musical compared to the thunder water makes as it rushes through a house's plumbing at the whim of any child.
But what's most aggravating about the racket of running water has nothing to do with pitch, volume, or variations in the way it vibrates through the pipes. What really does the average mother in are the potential disasters she faces each time her children twist the handle on the water valve:
- Passageways to China gouged out by the hose nozzle thrust deep into the soil
- Mud puddles formed outside and subsequently moved inside to the living room
- Wet towels and clothing stuffed everywhere but in the drier where they belong
- And last but not least, the heart-stopping size of the family water bill at the end of every month.
Of course, mom can put her foot down (hopefully not in the middle of some kid's mud pie) and forbid anyone under the age of 30 to lay one pinky on the water tap. But what kind of parent is she then, making her offspring go thirsty when it's 100 degrees in the shade and even her own tongue feels like #3 sandpaper every time she swallows hard?
Mother better be more practical: Say her kids can turn the water on long enough to wet their whistles, but the first one who aims even one drop of H20 anywhere but in his mouth will be sentenced to five hours of Chinese water torture!
But perhaps the only really humane solution is to have a backyard swimming pool installed with maybe a tiny little refrigerated water fountain on the side. After all, if a mom could thus get the kids to leave the outside water tap alone, she might be able to save enough on the monthly water bill to make pool payments.
--July 10, 1985
