Water

Having grown up in the a crowded suburbs, where our yard had only two small trees, I was running in the yard, testing the hammock, and hugging the surrounding trees, I became rather parched and tromped into the kitchen for the first time. Holding my favorite E.T. glass up to the faucet, I filled the cup quickly and took a gulp.  Immediately, I spat the water out of my mouth.  It turns out that, aside from having the primitive wonder of shade and trees, I also now had to deal with the eggy and sulphuric taste of well-water, something to which I was completely unaccustomed.  No longer could I drink water from every faucet with the ease of before as I carelessly rinsed my mouth after tooth-brushing or snuck gulps of bath tube water.  No, from now on, the only water I could handle had to be filtered through Brita purifiers and bottled water.  I became accustomed to this change in my life, and soon found it only slightly annoying when I had to filter the water before drinking it.  Yet more surprises lay in story for me.  When violent storms and crashing thunder bellowed from the sky, we lost not only our electricity in the house, but our capabilities to access water,since it was connected tot he electric pump.  In the winter of 2004, a giant ice storm decimated the area, covering branches in a film of glassy frozen water, bending their once suppliant branches to the ground or simply snapping them in half.  My family lost water and electricity for eight days during winter break of that year, so we spent most of our time in the heated movie theater down the road, or stealing cans of beets and beans from my mom's preschool, heating hotdogs in the microwave there.  When we were in the house, we were bundled up in parkas, scarves, gloves, and hats, attempting fuitily to keep warm.  Because I am constantly cold, I was always bundled up to full capacity, and it was due to this that my family decided I was the designated snow fetcher.  This meant that I braved the freezing elements with a large metal bowl, usually designated for mixing up the dough for warm, gooey cookies, in which I packed as much snow as possible.  We had one tiny kerosene heater in the kitchen, and we melted the snow atop this.  With the newly aquired water supply, I then had to fill the backs of the toilets with water, so taht they would be able to flush.  Without electricity,t he pump couldn't fill them back up, and we were left with clogged and unaccessible toilets.  however, I became the master of the water-melting and made sure that our family could use the bathroom for our dark week.