…and I find the water has stopped! Pretty much right where I placed my stick. There will be no high surf advisory for today after all.

‘Now we’re getting some place’, I says to myself. ‘I’ve not only proven the water is coming from my system and not my neighbors (no small relief there!), but also that the problem is likely something wacky with my box’. (Of course, replacing that box – were it to come to that – would mean $400 clams heading out the door, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.)

I took a seat in the shade of the tiki bar and stared at the small stream now evaporating in the morning warmth. A orangey-purple butterfly fluttered in to check my coffee out and headed for more aromatic pastures. What to do now. Well, the next obvious step was to see if I could avoid the flood happening on Wednesday altogether. That’s the skippy.

On Tuesday night I shut the box off. On Wednesday morning (yesterday) nothing happened. No water anywhere. I called the landscaping company that had originally installed the box two years ago and told them what was happening.

“That’s impossible”, the lady who answered the phone responded after I explained my state of affairs. “The only way you’d get water running is when a program is running. No program, no water.”

“I have no program running but I have water – every Wednesday and Sunday morning.”, says I.

“Sounds like you might have a problem with your box”, says she.

“I hadn’t thought of that”, says I (without any trace of sarcasm). “But if you have someone who can come out and take a look at things I’d sure appreciate it.”

“It’ll cost you $100 for the service call”, she says. “Book ’em, Dano”, says I.

So today a long haired guy with tatoos everywhere and blue topaz studs in both ears pulls up in his van. We head out back and I recount my sad story from the past few weeks to him.

“That’s impossible”, he says, “the only way you’d get water running is when a program is running. No program, no water.”

“I have no program running but I have water – every Wednesday and Sunday morning.”, says I.

“So why not just program your box to run the station when the water is already running?”, says he.

The two of us stood there in the quiet of the morning, he fussing with the box, me wondering what kind of a jackass God created in me. I’m thinking to myself, ‘so that’s what $100 gets you these days – sage advice that could have been communicated over the phone for free’.

He was the one who broke the silence between us. “Y’oughta dump that pail of water [a pan used for our A/C condensation outflow that I keep filled with water for the birds], it breeds mosquito larvae.”

“I like mosquito larvae”, says I. “Reminds me of the summers back East.” I was kidding. From the look he returned, he obviously didn’t get the joke.

“Suit yourself.”

Five minutes later – fifteen full minutes after he arrived – his truck disappeared around the corner and I’m $100 lighter in the checking account.

So what to do now? Well, I’ve programmed my box so that I will now water on Sunday and Wednesday mornings instead of Tuesdays and Saturdays. Maybe the station that’s producing the water will now at least do so during a regularly-programmed time. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll find the floods on Thursday and Monday mornings during yet another unprogrammed time.

Now that would be interesting…