Do I have any regrets from the past? 

Sure, I’ve got a whole bunch lying around. I manage to suppress most of them, but every now and then one will rear its ugly head, screech like a banshee, and spew gooey, green stuff all over my alter ego.

The regret that surfaced a week ago goes back a few years. I used to play in a pool league with a guy named John. Nice guy. Good sense of humor. We became friends. Then suddenly he stopped playing pool. He’d just had his first child and that took priority. I can respect that. But we never stayed in touch and therein lies my regret.

John is a well digger!

It’s too late now, but in retrospect I should have made John Godfather to all my grown children and put him in my will. 

Like so many people in the county right now, I’m doing a pretty good imitation of Don Knotts on speed every time I flush the toilet or run water in the sink. When the faucet starts “spitting air” the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and my pulse shoots up to about 250 beats per second. Full cardiac arrest can’t be far behind.

In just the past ten days no less than four friends have had their wells go dry. And everyone else I talk to is convinced, as I am, that they’ll be next.

Although it’s probably a futile effort, we are taking extraordinary efforts to conserve water. 

 I’ll skip the tasteless details of our FMO (Flushing Modus Operandi), but I foresee countless trips down to the creek with pails. 

While it’s painful to watch, all plant life outside our doors has long sense wilted, browned and gone to that big greenhouse in the sky.

We have to walk around the gallon jugs of store-bought water for cooking and drinking that line our kitchen floor. Actually, this is nothing new since our well water has always come out of the faucet a colorful shade of beige and tasted like ----!

Washcloth bathing has replaced showers. We try to avoid human contact as much as possible. If any of my clients are reading this, I recommend we communicate by phone and email until further notice.

There is one other water conservation procedure I have considered. When I see homeowners watering lush green lawns and flowerbeds (I’ve actually seen more of them than you would believe.), I am tempted to knock on their door, introduce myself, and blow them away.

THIS JUST IN! 

When I started to write this column last Friday we still had water. On Monday, my deadline for this column, our worst fears were realized. Our well is officially dry. I tracked down a well digger working in our neighborhood and got on his list. If everything goes well we should have water by Christmas.

One note of irony in this election year. If Four Seasons were already built I would be able to see the huge water tower they plan on building from where I live. Had that been the case, I would probably have had to get on the waiting list for another commodity in short supply in Queen Anne’s County. 

Plastic explosives.