Morning all. I’m a little late, but at least I am back. I got my booster shots and yesterday they just decided that they were going to take me down for the day. I think I slept for most of yesterday actually. But That seemed to have cleared things up. Now I am safe from the flu and other nasties which is always good to do before holiday gatherings. I just didn’t expect to get taken down for a whole day. Better than the alternatives of course, and at least I’m slow but still getting back to normal. So on with the prompt. Timers set to fifteen minutes please, and off we go.
I like this one. No clue what the story is but I like the character. I just need to find a story for him.
Wednesday, November 15th: The faucet dripped.
The faucet dripped. The steady plink, plink, plink of each drop into the steel of the kitchen sink he could hear. He tried to ignore it. The sound itself was not an annoyance. He was no one to worry over much for repetitive noises, but this one brought up childhood memories.
Water was scarce where he was from. A precious commodity. While people talked now of water shortages, there was still water in the faucet. There were not days where the water was rationed. There were not days where news broadcasts made announcements, schools sent home notes and every community gathering place put up notice about the upcoming shut offs. The shut offs were announced and water was gathered.
Old milk jugs were brought out of the broom closet where they were haphazardly stacked, their shape making them impossible to neatly stack or pile. They were a pain for most of the year, but during the summer they came into their own. In his mind it was always summer when the shortages occurred. Maybe because his mind equated the dust dry summers with thirst.
He remembered filling the jugs so that they would have enough water to get by for the three days that the water would be turned off. He remembered the adults carefully measuring out each drop. He knew some of his wealthier friends had families that would buy water at the store during the shortages. If they ran low, his family would, but they always started out with the reused milk jugs.
Bathing became an interesting time for all, regardless of their economic level. He was certain some of the adults kept their own milk jugs for bathing, but as kids they were all put in their swimwear and sent down to the lake. It wasn’t much of a lake even in the best of years, but even the driest summer didn’t kill it off, Bathing became a community affair and all the kids would troupe down to the lake, some with adults, some without, as evening approached.
Eco friendly soaps and shampoos would be passed around. Sometimes he came back with the products he took, other times they would get switched and swapped around. It didn’t really matter. All of the eco friendly lake approved products had the same scent to them. And in the end all of the kids would smell like lake water anyway.
It was the lake water scent that always stayed with him.
The plink plink plink of the water in the sink continued. He couldn’t take it. He stood and in his head he heard Stan Oberman, their local news reporter reminding him of how much water a leaky faucet could cost. How much water it wasted in a year. He took a deep breath and walked to the kitchen sink. He took a glass from the dish rack and put it under the drip. The water plinked in the glass, captured. He felt an internal sigh of relief as he turned to the faucet itself to start fixing the leak.
Ten til Midnight 