The Epic of the Water Pump

For about two months now we’ve had no water,

Well, the water is here but it won’t get hotter,

And we can’t take a shower when the water is cold.

Just sit and listen while my story is told.

We live about five floors off the ground

And water pressure in the sky just can’t be found.

It worked pretty well, for a year. Then it changed--

Sometime in October occurred something strange.

The water was off for most of a week.

Not just in our building, but all up the street.

When it came back on it wasn’t very strong,

And so our story carries on.

I called in a plumber and he saw the need

for a new pump motor our water to feed.

He could put one in for a few thousand pounds,

But our doorman said “wait, let’s look around.”

So we looked and we waited and came up with a plan.

We’d get a big pump and share it with the man

who lives up above us—his water’s weak too.

He thought the pump was long overdue.

But when the plumber started the job,

He found the situation was quite miserables.

The pipe to our kitchen made a ready connection

But it was not tied to the shower in question.

So back to the drawing board they retired,

to figure out how this building was wired

and outfitted with pipes when first it was built

long years ago on a bed of river silt.

For an hour or two we heard not a sound

From the guys who were working down on the ground.

We didn’t know what in the world they would do

When suddenly he came and said “We’re through.”

They’d connected a pump to the pipe just for us,

The water is flowing so we shouldn’t fuss.

But the heater that started this story you’re reading

Is still hanging there, and it’s still not heating.

I’m writing this waiting--ever so patient--

For the plumber to come back or at least send his agent

To fix up the problem in our old water heater;

He’s one hour late, he’ll come at his leisure.

Last night, before it was time to retire

An electrician came to hook up the wire

From our bathroom down to the basement below

So we could control the pump and its flow.

The plumbers sat in our bathroom just waiting

For someone to leave or maybe go skating?

For reasons not apparent to this poet

They didn’t want the building manager to know it.

To know that they changed the piping, I guess,

So they waited and sat after making a mess

By drilling a hole in the wall for the pump switch

They waited until they started to twitch.

For a good half an hour we were just killing time

Waiting for The Man to leave or to climb

Out of our garage so they could finish

Their work before their paycheck diminished.

By eleven o'clock they had it all done.

We can now turn the pump on and off just for fun.

Maybe today the water will heat

And I’ll take a shower. That will be sweet.