This month our hot water heater broke. It was a simple part that busted and Amazon guaranteed the replacement would be here in only two days… so we decided to go without hot water for a few days.
The first day was exciting. We had to boil water in our tea kettle to draw a bath. It felt like something our pioneering ancestors would have done when they first settled here. Life was an adventure… and our cold showers were a front row seat.
But Amazon screwed up our order… and a few days turned into a week… and they still didn’t know where the part was. By the end, everyone was dreading a bath in barely-warm, barely-deep-enough water. The replacement part looked like it would never come, so we called a plumber and everything was resolved that night.
Throughout this whole process I realized how many amazing inventions we take for granted. Our water is not only hot (or cold — depending on our choice), but it’s clean and abundant. Light magically appears with the flick of the light. A thermostat makes sure it’s always a comfortable temperature.
Even though I knew I was being ridiculous since not everyone in the world has hot water, I still felt irritated that I didn’t have hot water. And that really blew my mind about how dependent I had become on all these things. It’s hard to go back once you become so used to something that you can’t ever remember not having it.
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