Out of Gas

Thursday night when I came home from the barn, I took as shower as usual. Then I put in a load of laundry. As I was closing the washer, my husband Craig says to me "We have no gas." and I said "How do you know?" and he says "The oven won't light."

Perfect. We knew this was coming, since we went through this same thing in December. We had no gas coming into the house, and were told by the gas company that there was water in our line, possibly from a leak in the gas line coming from the street to our house, which was our responsibility to fix. We asked if they could pressure check the line, but the guy told us that if they do that and there is a leak, they can't turn the gas back on until they fix it. At that point, in Cleveland in December, it was way too cold to go without gas. So the workman told us that they could blow the water out of the line. If that fixed the problem, then they'd turn the gas back on right then. Since that worked, he suggested that we sign up for the gas line insurance which would cover fixing the line, which he predicted we'd have to do in the spring. I'll be damned if he wasn't right on.

Friday they sent a crew out, and we thought they'd just fix the line since we have the insurance. Well, we got home and there was a note to call the gas company and they'd explain "the procedure" We called the gas company and they said we do indeed have a leak in the line and they don't fix that - we need to call a plumber. Craig told them that we have line insurance, which they hadn't even bothered to check for, so they gave him another number to call. Eventually we got a plumber that called us back and said they could come out Saturday around 3. Then he says he's pretty sure that we won't get our gas turned on until Monday cause the gas company has to do that, and they only run a skeleton crew on Saturday and are closed on Sunday.

How can this be true? Closed on Sunday? They're a utility, and people use utilities every day. What happens if there is a gas leak or an explosion on a Sunday? Do they get a recording that says "Hey, we're closed, call back tomorrow?" I doubt it. So someone is working on Sunday and that means, by God, SOMEONE will be turning our gas on.

Granted, it's not that cold, but it did go down to 40 degrees last night so the house went down to 60, which is pretty damn cold. And we have no hot water and can't cook, so I'm a little whiny about the whole thing.

It's too bad we can't run our appliances off of little girl gas. Cause let me just tell you how gassy our kids are. The other night we were at the dinner table and I heard this HUGE fart from the other side of the table where Lily and Craig were sitting. I looked blamingly at him and his eyes got really wide and he pointed at Lily. We took this as our 20 second warning that poop was a comin'. See, we're starting the potty training thing with Lily and she will poop and pee on the potty if we put her there. But she never tells us when she has to go. When Lily poops, it goes down in one of three ways. #1 - She'll poop her pants and say nothing, which forces us to play the "Who pooped?" game and go around smelling baby butts until we find the culprit. #2 - She says "I have to poop on the potty" which means she just crapped her pants. #3 - She casually walks up to you and says "I pooped.", almost as an afterthought. But sometimes, very rarely, she'll fart loudly enough before she poops that we can get her on the potty.

Our girls like fruit and vegetables. Oh, they eat meat and rice and bread products too, but the high fruit and veggie intake means soft poop as well as considerable gas. We took Lily to the doctor at around one and a half years old, thinking that things should have firmed up by now with the addition of table food. The doctor assured us that her poop was okay if it was soft, and that it was much better than hard poop and a consitpated child. Sure, better for them. But it means a lot of work with each diaper change. I'm talking at least 8 wipes to clean their ample butts. And since the poop is not formed and is soft, it goes EVERYWHERE. Up the back, out the sides. It's just gross.

Turns out the plumber was able to come early and fix the line pretty quickly so we were able to get on the list for the 4pm - 11 pm crew. The gas company said they'd be here "soon". We'll see what they think soon is. Craig said "I don't care if it's 10:59 pm, just as long as they turn the gas back on tonight." I hear that. We both need showers. And I'm a huge hot water hog so I'm going first. I always say that if your skin isn't red when you get out of the shower, then the water wasn't hot enough. Viva la gas!