{"id":729,"date":"2008-03-28T20:42:08","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T18:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=729"},"modified":"2009-12-28T20:45:50","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T18:45:50","slug":"waterless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2008\/03\/waterless\/","title":{"rendered":"Waterless"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week, we ran out of hot water. Well, we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually run out. But through a convergence of bad luck, all our hot water heating devices broke down simultaneously, leaving us hot waterless with Shabbat coming and five Blums needing to take their pre-sundown showers.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Israeli family would just suck it up and plunge feet first into the icy water. But we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re more weenies than sabras. Maybe if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d served in the army we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be tougher. But 16-year-old Amir\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a year and a half away from that and his father was never called up.<\/p>\n

We had to figure out a solution\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and fast.<\/p>\n

First some history. What happened is this: We generally use our gas heater which gives us instantaneous hot water for as long as we want.<\/p>\n

The gas heater wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t broken but it was getting temperamental. So we called the gas heater repair people. A mild mannered repairperson named Alon arrived on Wednesday and began taking our unit apart. He quickly found the problem. The gas jets were old and needed to be replaced. He wanted to take the troublesome part with him.<\/p>\n

But how will we take showers on Thursday? I asked. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry, Alon replied. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have it back to you tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n

Trusting immigrant that I am, I let him walk off with our ailing jets. On Thursday morning, a secretary from gas company called. The man who fixes the jets wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in today. They could only have it back to us on Friday.<\/p>\n

While inconvenient, we always had Plan B. Now, nearly every apartment in Israel has a dud shemesh \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a solar water heater. In a country where unleaded gasoline was only mandated a few years ago, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the few environmentally friendly innovations Israel has implemented, and one that makes sense in a country which has sunny cloudless days 9 months out of the year.<\/p>\n

The only problem was that it was winter and cloudy. The sun peeked through enough to give us one shower\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth of warm, not hot, water.<\/p>\n

Off we went to Plan C: we have an electric heater which boils the water on exactly these kinds of cloudy days. We flipped the switch and waited an hour. Nothing. We waited another hour. Still no hot water. We called the electrician. He came and said we needed to call a plumber. The plumber was booked.<\/p>\n

The last time I took a cold shower was when I was traveling in Thailand 11 years ago. The days were 105 degrees with 200% humidity. This was not one of those times.<\/p>\n

So to summarize our story so far: we had no gas, no solar and no electric heat. It was precisely at this moment of bleak realization that the gas people called back. The jet fixer wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t coming in today either. And since they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work on Shabbat, Sunday was the earliest they could repair our unit. And, the secretary added, it might not work at all in which case they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be glad to sell us a brand new unit for the low price of $1500.<\/p>\n

I started to scream into the phone. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is unacceptable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I wailed. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re leaving us without hot water for 4 days. What kind of customer service is this?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

For some reason I thought raising my voice was the proper Israeli response. After all, it works in the supermarket and at the falafel stand.<\/p>\n

The secretary didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blink (well I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she did, it was over the phone). \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have no choice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said in a calm monotone. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sunday, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best I can do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

It was a long cold Shabbat, but when Sunday finally arrived, the gas guy came with the fixed part. We weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so lucky with the plumber. It took him a week to figure out that the wires weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t connected properly on our dud.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to say that our frustrating experience was typically Israeli. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard from friends overseas that dealing with plumbers and electricians and gas repairmen can be trying no matter where you are in the world.<\/p>\n

In any case, hot water finally flows freely in our house. It may take a little longer to cool down from our heated tempers. Next time all the hot water heating options break down simultaneously, though\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m flying to Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, we ran out of hot water. Well, we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually run out. But through a convergence of bad luck, all our hot water heating devices broke down simultaneously, leaving us hot waterless with Shabbat coming and five Blums needing to take their pre-sundown showers. Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Israeli family would just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}