La bomba no bomba

An excerpt of our conversation during our first weekend in our new house:

‘Honey, there is no more water in the shower, I just got soaped up and everything…’

‘How can that be?’ Trying some other taps in the house. ‘There is no water anywhere! I thought you run the pump two days ago?’

‘I know, I guess we didn’t run it long enough then.’

‘OK, no problem I’ll turn it on.’ … ‘That does not sound good at all, seems like nothing is happening.’

‘Oh, what? It worked just fine two days ago, made the same sound though. And now that I think about it, it didn’t shut off automatically. We had to turn off the fuse to stop the pump.’

‘And you didn’t think that was weird?’

‘I don’t know! This is Mexico. How am I supposed to know what is weird and what not?’

‘Well, just use the drinking water to get the soap off. In the meantime I’ll have another look.’ … ‘I think I know what the problem is, there is no water in the cisterns downstairs, so the pump has nothing to pump up. You probably burned the pump when it ran dry on Thursday.’

‘Oh great, it is Saturday night, what should we do? I can’t stay here without water while you go off to Carmen for two weeks? What does that mean “the pump burned”? I don’t see any burns?’

‘It means that the seal in the pump probably broke.’

‘Ohhh, do you think that is why there was so much water leaking? I thought it was because the tank upstairs was full or something…’

(Pitiful smile) ‘Right now there is nothing much we can do, let’s just go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day and if it gets unbearable just check in in a hotel here in Veracruz.’

‘^%$#@#$%^&!’

….

‘Let’s go out for coffee, smelly and everything.’

‘Yeah, it would be good to get the water going, I have to be on a plane in 5 hours. Don’t think my neighbor is going to appreciate the smell of hard work on me.’

‘He…. What is that? Do you think this is where the water enters the house? Shouldn’t this valve be open?’

‘Hmmmmm, darn you may be right.’ (Admiration in his eyes.)

‘Want to try it?’

‘Why not? You turn it open and I’ll go listen if the water comes in.’ (from afar and excited) ‘Yes, it works, the water is coming in. It is only a matter of time now!’

Of course that was not the end of the story. After the relief that the water came in, it turned out that the pump did get burned. Dave never got to shower, as there was not enough water going up. He left me to deal with ‘the situation’. And I handled it fine: the plumber was called the next day, came the day after and then took another day to fix it…