What You Can’t See . . . Matters

Two weeks before Christmas, the water meter reader left a note on my gate–“Meter is moving at 12:00 p.m.,” it said.

Apparently the meter reader is a man of few words, but I grasped his meaning–at a time when a house should be relatively free of running water, mine wasn’t. So I went out to the street to look at the meter, and saw that the man was right–the little triangular symbol that indicated running water was spinning lazily, but I wasn’t washing clothes or dishes.

Uh oh–we had a water leak. So I had to hire a “Leak Detector” (they’re a real thing), so the man came out and after poking around all my spigots and listening intently in all my bathrooms, he pulled out the heavy equipment and listened for gurgles coming from beneath the earth. And there, not a yard from the meter, we found the problem–a leaking pipe beneath a crape myrtle I planted five years ago.

Can you imagine searching this lawn for a leak?

So then I called a plumber and they repaired the pipe. Preparing to bask in the glow of a job completed, we went out to check the meter and found that it was still spinning . . . but very slowly. The leak detector came back out and was nice enough to not charge me, but he said I probably had a little leak and could call him back when it turned into a big one. That’s the problem with leaks, you see. They come from weaknesses in a pipe, and they don’t heal themselves.

In the mean time, I thought the slow spin could be caused by a dripping faucet, so I called my handyman and he fixed that. I didn’t even bother to check the meter, since I was so confident that the problem was solved.

Until yesterday. I was washing my hands, and as I turned off the water, I thought the water flow in the sink seemed a little . . . reduced. So I walked out to the water meter on the street and saw that the little triangle was spinning like an airplane propeller. The BIG hand on the meter was even spinning quickly, and that means serious trouble. A few days of that, and the water company might as well attach a hose to your bank account and drain it all.

Fortunately, after living in this house five years, I’ve learned that we have a water shut off halfway across the lot, so I turned that off and saw that the meter had stopped spinning. That meant the problem was near the house, not out in the yard with my hundreds of trees and bushes.

I know where the main pipe feeds into the house, and sure enough, after raking away some leaves, I saw that the leaves underneath were wet–soggy, even. So this morning I had some plumbers come out, but they quickly realized they were over their heads. They couldn’t tell exactly where the leak was, and with all those plants and tree roots . . .

Not my pipe, thank goodness.

So I had to call Mr. “I Find Leaks” again. And he came that afternoon, thank the Lord. Because we were living with no water, and when we DID turn it on to take a shower, that meter started whirling again. Plus, I had Airbnb guests coming for the weekend . . . .

The point of this story? You may be going through your life with a smile, doing what you’re supposed to do, appearing to be perfectly fine to the untrained eye . . . but if you have a problem underneath, something you’re reluctant to deal with . . .

Well, take it from someone who’s learned, it’s better to take care of the thing that continues to leak your precious physical and mental energy. Take some time to pray about whatever it is, call a friend, talk the problem through with someone you trust. Because those little leaks can turn into a major headache, and you’ll find yourself brushing your teeth with bottled water.

My broken pipe–actually, it was an L joint that disconnected.

Update: Thursday afternoon, Mr. Leak Detector came out, injected air into the line, and walked all over the yard with earphones and a microphone. Then he heard the gasp of air bubbles–and it was nowhere near the place where I was going to have the plumbers dig. The plumbers came Friday afternoon, and with minutes to spare, they fixed the leak. I gave them homemade cupcakes as a thank you.

My airbnb guests arrived, we were able to use the sinks again, and we didn’t have to resort to hauling water from the creek. God is good . . . and if you have a child who doesn’t know what to do with his or her life, let me suggest plumbing or leak detection. It’s hard to find those when you need one!