The Story about Communication & the Water Bill

Once upon a time - there was a family who lived in Houston Texas, the kids were out of school on spring break, the dad was working in Corpus Christie and the mom was working semi-part time doing inspections all over the Houston metro-plex. One morning, the mom woke up and tried to turn on the shower to get ready for another great day. Only, on this day, the shower would not turn on. So the mom, being a great inspector - started checking all the pipes and other water fixtures - NONE of them were working. Quickly she went to the neighbors, if they had no water, there could be a main break, the neighbors water worked fine.

She thought to herself, surely, her very organized, money smart husband paid the water bill. So, she began to look for the water bill to call the water company and tell them that there was a problem. But, the water bill was no where to be found. In desperation mode, she called her husband..... (and this is where the story gets good)

The dad says "of course I paid the bill, I will check my online banking and tell you when it will go thru and how much". The mom "Wait... what do you mean by when it will go thru, are you telling me that it hasn't gone thru yet" she was trying so hard not to get hesterical. "Well, NO, it clears on Friday" said the dad. And he began to explain "I read the bill and it didn't make any sense, we paid on time last month and that was just a few weeks ago, so I don't know why the bill said past due, but it was wrong". Trying to understand the mom said "so the bill said PAST DUE, but you knew that it was wrong, and called them and talked to them about it, right"? "um, no - I didn't call them, but I know that I am right" said the dad in a very quiet voice.

Lets just shorten the story - The dad being one who doesn't like to make phone calls, looked over the bill, thought about it, and came to the decision that he was right and the water company was wrong, and paid the bill LATE.

The mom being one who likes to have running water at the house - went and paid the bill and pleaded that her husband was at fault and was out of town (where she couldn't ring his neck) please, please, please, turn the water back on.

One hour later her husband calls to say "its OK - by this weekend we will have overpaid and then we will be ahead" and he was happy............ The mom being a smart mom, decided to blog about it in effort that one day he will read the story and know that she loved him. BUT - she was right and that he needed to work on his communication skills.