You never realize what you take for granted until it's gone.

This morning my hot water heater was as lifeless as could be. As I was boiling water frantically so that my wife could wash her hair I got to thinking about the things we take for granted and how in a disaster situation, many if not all of those things could disappear in a heartbeat.

Something to think about.

At least you had an alternative.

My sister's power went out in her all-electric house last week. If she had a wood stove, she could have heated water on it, if she had had any stored water. Wells depend on electricity.

I suggested (once again) that she store some water. Maybe it's getting through... finally... as when I went over there yesterday, there were six gallons of water on the kitchen counter.

Sue

A few years ago I broke my thumb on my left hand (I'm right handed for the most part) but, gee, I sure did miss it. Never had any idea of how much I use that hand (thumb).

Here's another thing we take for granted. Skill.

I just paid a plumber $225 bucks to fix my water heater in 15 minutes flat.

...I'm in the wrong business.

My dentist once told me that the average plumber retires with more money than the average dentist. Go figure...

The oven element in our kitchen shorted out about a month ago (always when I am out of town) and I did not get a replacement for about a week. After I installed it and turned on the heat to test it it REALLY sparked and for 3 weeks I have fiddled with it with no success.

My DW was getting madder and more frustrated with me and today she had an appliance repair guy come in to look at it. It took him 2 hours of searching but he finally found a small short and repaired it.

The good news was, it only cost $50.00, I thought it was going to be a lot more expensive.

Mike

Makes sense to me. The plumber doesn't require 4 years of undergraduate plus graduate/dental school. I would think that the cost of that education would be significantly higher for the dentist rather than the trade/technical schools used by the plumber.

Most dentists (not specialists) usually start with a pretty steep debt to pay off first. Plus the equipment costs would be much higher.

That being said, I've taken my vow of poverty being a Catholic school teacher.

And of course every time I go in for a checkup, the dentist has new and improved equipment, the dental field seems to be changing faster than other medicine. Then there are all of those "assistants" than they have, and the malpractice insurance, and the magazine subscriptions...

I bet heating and air conditioning guys aren't too far behind the plumbers.

It is one of the reasons people say.....We are only 72 hours from the stone age.

We've gotten too soft.

Murphy's Law #3(Paraphrased): With any expensive & complex machine, it will be the 25 cent part that fails and brings everything to a screeching halt!!!

With society being as complicated as it is, it really doesn't/wouldn't take much to start that 72 hour clock to commenced the countdown to the stone age (for the 4th or 5th time around).

That was at the top of my list as well.