Writer's Noose

I'm back!

Yesterday was not a good day. I woke up late and very fuzzy headed. There was no power at all. The batteries were completely discharged. It was raining and very windy. The generator wouldn't start.

Son of a ...

Since there was no hot water I had to go for a cold shower. This was a miserable experience for approximately half of the shower. It got worse at the half-way point when the water ran out. No water left in the reservoir. Great.

I washed the soap off with bottled water, practically freezing my boys off in the process, got dressed and went to have a look at the generator. Everything looked fine. It has run perfectly the day before. Now it wouldn't even give me a chug or a gasp. Sound familiar? Yeah, I had a cold spot in the pit of my stomach that blossomed into a thorough chill of my entire being as I removed a spark plug and saw the cylinder was full of water.

You know how this is pretty impossible in an outboard motor, right? well it's even more impossible with this generator because the thing is air cooled. There's no water. There is absolutely no possible way that water could be in this engine unless somebody came in the middle of the night, removed the spark plugs, pored water into the cylinders and then put everything back the way it was. Hell of a prank.

Did I mention that this person would also need to be a flying master thief? The ground around the shed is clay and mud. It had rained pretty much all through the night. There were no footprints. The door to the shed is locked. I specifically remember locking it the morning before.

I siphoned the water out to make sure it wasn't gas like Benny thought it might have been in the boat motor. Nope. Definitely water. Somebody was maliciously sabotaging my equipment. Who the hell would do something like that? There just aren't many people on the lake right now. There is nobody within a half mile of this cabin. What kind of vicious prankster would go so out of his way to try to make me miserable?

I spent the day in a funk. I couldn't get online since the sattelite uses house power and there wasn't any. I wrote a bit on the laptop until its battery died. The rest of the day I just sat on the porch watching it rain and drinking beer.

I woke up an hour ago with a beautiful hangover and went immediately to the shed to check on the generator. The cylinders looked bone dry. I put the plugs back in, hooked everything up and gave it a yank. It fired right up. I've got power and water again and am about to go take a warm shower. I don't know who is fucking with me but I'm pretty damned pissed right now.