Goodbye, river.

At about 4:30 yesterday, I finally got Missouri American Water Company out here again. And they realized that, indeed, they did need to do something about our swamp and the river flowing down my driveway. The guy came by to turn off my water and said, "Hey, I think you have a main break. We need to fix that." Sheesh.

Anyway, last night around 6:30, a digger shows up in my front yard, along with two trucks. The water was turned off down the street, but unfortunately, the company forgot to tell anybody else on the street that they'd be without water for a few hours. Go figure. That done, a large gash was dug into the ground in my front yard, the faulty pipe pulled out and replaced and everything was put back (minus the grass and with the addition of a giant dent in the yard from the digger) and the trucks gone by about 10 last night.

Even though I lost all my cucumbers thanks to flooding - the leaves and fruit are rotting off the vines because of a combination of Ike and the driveway river - at least the water's gone. And the guys digging up my yard seemed to know what they were doing. At least I hope so given the size of the hole they dug.

The most frustrating thing about the whole situation is that I can't just sit back and say, "Oh, well the customer service agents there are idiots." Because they're not - they were just telling me what they knew and were remarkably kind to an increasingly hysterical, frustrated stranger. Unfortunately, they apparently had not received adequate training on what services their company provides. Their contractors were also great (with the exception of not telling others what was going on - if I were my neighbor, that'd tick me off) and knew what they were doing. But apparently I'm now notorious at Missouri American Water. Not only did their contractors know that I had been extremely angry, after I talked to the county, apparently they complained on my behalf so the Director of Customer Service has left me a message, too. It sucks that I had to flip out just to get someone to look at the darn thing.

Well, sayonara, river. And good riddance.