Conservation's Finest Hour

In case anyone is wondering, we’re not going to make it to the beach in September. As it turns out, we’re on the 5-year plan as far as vacations go. In 2002, we went to Williamsburg, VA. In 2007 we went to Gaitlinburg, TN. Maybe in 2012 we’ll finally make it to Myrtle Beach, SC. We’re like highly conditioned athletes in that we don’t want to get too relaxed and possibly risk losing our edge. Or gaining our sanity. Right now we don’t really comprehend how tired we actually are. And we’d like to keep it that way. Also, we came home from vacation last month to a minor predicament. Apparently, one of our sprinklers had been running the entire time we had been gone. That’s right. Five solid days of water being flung gaily back and forth through the air by our oscillating sprinkler, hour after blissful hour.

It was the garden’s fault. It looked so pitiful out there shriveling away in North Carolina's triple digit summer that I knew I HAD to make sure it got a drink while we were on vacation or it would surely die. So the day before we left I ran over to my friend, Ace, and picked up a couple of water timers...one of which failed. Obviously. But I didn’t know that until we got back because I was frantically hooking them up in the sweltering heat as Jeff was buckling the kids into their car seats to leave on said vacation. Frantically, because I had just taken a shower and wanted to stay out of the heat and humidity, not because we were late leaving. Just wanted to make that clear. When Jeff sets a deadline in our house, we are never even a fraction of a minute late. Because he is the head of our home and we honor his committment to the minute hand. When I'm in charge, however, you can almost guarantee some form of tardiness. But I'm okay with that. Really, I am. There is something about constantly looking frazzled that appeals to me. Just so you all know.

Our grass loved it. Everything else drowned. Contention ever so briefly transpired. Understandably, I’ve been on the look-out each day for the little white mail truck to make sure I get the bill before Jeff . So in case it really is the $500+ he expects, I can talk him down. Kind of like making sure I got the mail before my folks did when I was expecting a demerit in high school. Ah…sweet memories. There is something so precious about reliving the past well into your thirties. Anyway, we got the bill this weekend and it was only $181. Of course, it’s usually around $70 but I think it was offset by our lack of usage on vacation. Also by the fact that the week after we came home, Mecklenburg County issued mandatory water restrictions. Probably because our family had single-handedly drained Lake Norman the previous week. But I didn’t worry. Because our green grass was(is) still drying out.