One of the worst possible times for something to go wrong is when there’s a single day between Shabbat and a holiday. We don’t do work on Shabbat and don’t use electronics or devices. Many of the same restrictions exist for holidays.
So when you have only a single day between Shabbat and a holiday, you have to combine all your prep for the holiday and anything else that needs to be done into those daylight hours. When that one day is a Sunday, that can make things even more difficult.
The absolute worst time to find your hot water heater is leaking and needs to be replaced is that one fateful Sunday immediately after Shabbat and immediately before Rosh Hashanah. Welcome to my life.
A broken hot water heater may seem slight, but when you have a family of six and that means shutting off the water to the entire house, it’s absolutely terrible. You can’t live in a house with no water and six people are not easily housed elsewhere, especially during a holiday.
Traditionally, we welcome the new year by eating apples and honey in the hopes that the new year will be sweet. So when we welcome the new year with stress, expense, frustration, and no water, what kind of a year are we ushering in?
Most of our calls to the emergency plumbing hotlines went unanswered (Dear Spokane plumbers, “24/7” You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means). Of those we talked to, one couldn’t come until the evening—during Rosh Hashanah services. We couldn’t do that. One wanted to charge an enormous amount of money and couldn’t guarantee a time.
We had very limited time to get this taken care of and we were out of ideas. I turned to a local homeschool group on Facebook and asked for recommendations. One woman suggested a friend who could help. Another offered her husband’s help. One friend who lives far away offered to send her husband all the way to us or have him help us over the phone. People I don’t know offered suggestions and recommendations. We hurried out to buy a hot water heater and someone from that group came to help install it. He was incredibly nice and helpful the entire time.
Earlier in the day, in the middle of the hot water heater catastrophe, I had to rush out to meet a friend. She sent us home with bunches of food. We had no idea how much of a lifesaver that would be. While they were installing the hot water heater, there wasn’t time to prep or cook at all. Our kids prepared a large amount of that food so that we’d have lunch and dinner ready.
This could have been an absolute disaster. The year 5777 could have been the year of no water and copious amounts of stress and frustration (and expletives). Instead, thanks to the kindness of others, this coming year will be remembered as one of graciousness and support.
