A Simple Thing Like Water

We are aware that Americans are wasteful, but nothing brings the truth home like being without something we use in large quantities every day, like water.
Our pump is taking a vacation, and while my husband has spent two days now in the well pit, making funny noises and occasionally saying things his mother would not approve of, we have no water running through our pipes and into our home.
I'm trying to look at it as historical research. Having buckets all over the house and measuring usage based on the knowledge that when that bucket is empty, we'll have to go find more is a great way to understand what people of the past went through every single day.
Everything I do seems to be tied to water. The toilets are a given, but it's amazing how many times I automatically reach for that flush handle. And how often did I turn on the faucet in the last day before remembering that rinsing off my hands isn't an option right now? (Thank goodness for hand sanitizer!)
How many things in our lives would change drastically if we had to carry water into our homes from somewhere else? In the past, what consideration had to be given to the different purposes of water, e.g. drinking water as opposed to water for scrubbing floors? How aware were the upper classes of what the lower classes went through to provide them with water each day? And did they care?
See? It's a great lesson I'm getting from this mini-catastrophe in my home, but as I write this, my husband came in to say he's fixed the pump. Water flows again into upstairs and down, sinks and toilets. I can go back to not thinking much about whence go the pipes.