Reflections - Trickle Threat

Candlelight and Paper Plates

 

 

April first, the weather at Wells Wood turned nasty. Sitting at the secretary desk in the bedroom, I joined a ZOOM meeting for my Pennwriters group. Doris read her essay about driving home the previous Saturday with toppled trees in yards and wind whipping debris across Meadville roads.

While she read, the wind at Wells Wood howled through treetops. Trees bent in agonized angles. The sky blackened. Rain pelted the window beside my desk. Lights blinked. The on-screen images of writers faded.

“Spence, are you connected to the internet?”

“Yeah,” he called from the great room. “Oh, no. It’s off.” He came and leaned over my shoulder. “Leave the meeting and join again.”

I did. It worked—for a minute. Lights and internet went out and stayed out.

Spence patted my back. “Let’s plug in the solar panels.”

He had to be kidding. “The sky is black.” I pointed out the front window. “We won’t get any power.”

“It’s blue in the south.”

Looking over my shoulder through the side bedroom window, I spotted patches of blue between the racing black clouds. Maybe I could rejoin the meeting by solar power. I hustled outside and threw the switch disconnecting the panels from the grid. Electricity could flow into the house, but our panels would no longer send power out. We didn’t want to electrocute any workers repairing the system.

Armed with lights—his phone and my three-inch purse flashlight—we eased down the spiral stairs, being careful not to trip on Ande. Perched on a step halfway down, the cat watched Spence unsnarl two extra long utility extension cords while I held the flashlights aloft.

Reading directions for switching to in-house power, we connected the cords—the first to the freezer which stayed silent, not a good sign. The second Spence looped up the spiral stairs to a power strip. He repeated his unsnarling trick with the modem. “So many wires!” Last, he plugged the plant light, which took very little electricity, into the power strip. The light stayed dark. Clouds had covered the patch of blue.

Getting back to the meeting didn't matter. We could use the wood stove for cooking and heat. Solar panels could eventually run the freezer and refrigerator, charge our phones and laptops, as well as power the internet when it came back in service. But we couldn’t pump any more water into the house from the well without the utility company’s electricity. We would have to conserve water if power didn’t return by dinnertime.

It didn’t.

After a wood stove cooked dinner, Spence moseyed to the sofa for a nap. Our son Charlie shuffled down the hall and plopped onto his bed. I stacked the dishes to harmonious snores. I could postpone washing them until we got power back—surely by morning. In the meantime, the reserves in our tanks needed to be used for cooking, hand washing, teeth brushing, and drinking. Lighting eight-inch red candles, I propped my elbows on the kitchen table and read Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

Power didn’t return Sunday morning. I decided to put dishes off again.

Spence had other ideas. “You have to wash the dishes. If you don’t, I will.”

In past blackouts, our water supply for essentials lasted twenty-four hours. We had a twenty-gallon incoming well tank and an eighty-two-gallon pressurized water tank for filtered water. Once we drained those, water trickled, air spit, then nothing came out of the tap. Maybe the fifty-gallon hot water tank we added with the geothermal system would make a difference.

“I’ll wash the dishes.” 

He tucked his chin and looked down his nose. “I don’t mind.”

“No, I’ll do it. I’d rather you haul the cistern water for the toilets.” With the valves shut off so water couldn’t flow from the house supply into the toilets, we needed cistern water to flush. Spence enjoyed riding his Mahindra tractor. He could haul the heavy buckets.

While the tractor motor grumbled outside, I grabbed the cast iron dutch oven for washing and a large stainless steel stock pot for rinsing. Filling each half full, I admired the flow coming from the sink tap. We had enough water to last at least until Monday morning. The power would probably be restored by then. Nevertheless, I stopped myself from reaching for the tap to rinse—most of the time—and set the paper plates on the table.

Mid afternoon, I wished for a magical resolution to the electric and internet outages. “Spence, will you drive to cell phone range and tell PennPower and Windstream we still aren't connected?”

“They know. The outage is widespread.”

“Last time you called, we got service right away.” Why did he have to be a realist?

“That was a coincidence.” Nevertheless, he reached for his keys, pet his buddy Rills, and left. In the distance the old Colorado pickup, which he’d parked under the spruce trees, rumbled away. (The electric garage door didn’t work, of course, and the hand release cord had broken trapping his new Maverick in the garage.) He returned with a dismal report: “PennPower’s robot said, ‘There is a widespread outage. We’re working as fast as we can.’ Windstream said, ‘There is a widespread outage. Thanks for being patient.’”

Usually they state the number of hours or at least the day to expect service.

After yet another wood stove cooked dinner, I washed dishes by the two-pan method, and Spence checked water pressure in the basement. “It’s down to twenty psi.” Twenty pounds per square inch?  Way too low.

 

Pine Trees Casting Shadows on Solar Panels

We faced a trickle threat.

Not fair.

Two weeks earlier we had solved the problem of the long winter of dribbling showers and trickling faucets. I’d scrubbed the ceramic candle filters in snowmelt water and replaced the muddy sediment filter in our water system. I relaxed in the hot, luxurious, full-spray showers that our geothermal furnace provided once again. Now, we didn’t take showers. And Tuesday afternoon, I would need to strip from the waist up for an echocardiogram. I needed a shower. Sponge baths aren’t efficient at cleaning stinky armpits.

I flipped the hot water tap on and off quickly to dampen my toothbrush. Squeezing a dab of toothpaste, I scrubbed my teeth, spit forcefully, and turned the tap to rinse. The water flowed in a steady stream at room temperature. The extra geothermal tank had given us extra days of water, but how many? Falling asleep Sunday night, I chanted, “You will wake to electric lights.”

Instead, the wood stove clanking in the dark woke me. Voices drifted in from the great room. I switched on my reading lamp—no electricity. My phone read 5:00 a.m. Spence must be making Charlie breakfast before he drove to work. I went back to sleep.

Hours later, the internet, which Spence had plugged into the solar panel fed power strip, popped on. Spence and I spent a quiet morning, side by side on the sofa, tapping keys on our laptops. “It's a date,” he said, always the romantic.

The day wore on. We filled the enameled-steel, gallon kettle with tap water—still flowing full stream—boiled it on the wood stove, and filtered the water for drinking. 

Spence drove to the Meadville library for a ZOOM meeting that evening. Before the solar panels stopped producing energy, I checked the power outage status of First Energy, PennPower’s parent company, online. It listed 3, 273 customers still without power in Mercer County. Drat.

At 5:15, the plant table light flickered. The refrigerator motor ground on and off, on and off and . . . and the sun moved behind the old pine stand. The trees’ shadows on the solar panels cut power off. I warmed leftover chicken burgers and peas on the wood stove then did dishes using the hot water tap to draw from the geothermal tank. Water still flowed smoothly. Our conservation methods worked. We could probably manage a blackout twice as long. I couldn’t wait much longer for a shower though. Grrrr. “You’ve got twelve hours to get your wires together,” I shouted to PennPower.

Ande cocked his head. Normally I don’t raise my voice over kitchen chores.

“It’s okay, Ande. I’ll just use lots of soap on my washcloth when I clean up for the medical appointment.”

Seeming reassured, he lay on his side with legs extended forward and back.

More reassuring, the great room track lights gleamed in luminous splendor at precisely 6:56. I hooted, scooped Ande’s elongated furry form into my arms, and danced around the kitchen table.

He squirmed and leapt. Licking each shoulder in sequence, he pranced to the cat fountain, which bubbled and gurgled again.

Our fifty-three and a half hour trickle threat had ended. The new geothermal hot water tank had strengthened our independence from the electric power company. And before Tuesday’s appointment, I would bask in a full-stream shower.

Geothermal Hot Water Tank

 Reflections - Trickle Troubles

Showerhead

Showering became races to avoid trickle torture. I longed for the luxurious gush which the geothermal hot water gave in the winter of 2022. I would wash and rinse my hair, soap and rinse my body, then linger under the soothing spray as if getting a treatment at a health spa. The force gradually diminished. This winter, with Spence, our son, and me performing morning ablutions and toilet flushings, showers sprayed modestly at first. I rushed to get my hair washed and my body soaped before performing an awkward ballet under the showerhead to catch the last drops for a final rinse. 

We had trickle troubles.

“What happened to the water pressure?” Spence shouted to no one in particular one morning at the beginning of March. Frustrated, he rubbed the towel briskly over himself.

Leaning against the door jam, I explained the gradual drop in water pressure. “I wonder if a pipe froze underground between the water pump by the old cabin site and the new log house.”

“Maybe something in the furnace is blocking water going to the hot water tank.” Spence scrunched his lips, wiggling his mustache. “Could be a blockage in our water filters. I’ll check with Jerry.” He emailed Jerry Kennihan, who designed our geothermal system.

“Sounds like you need to clean the filters,” Jerry wrote back.

Spence traipsed downstairs, banged around causing six cat ears to stand at attention upstairs, and returned with a report. “The air filter wasn’t bad. The screen behind was.” He made the outline of a cat with his hands. “It had enough hair to make another cat.” 

Cleaning the air filters gave us minor relief—for a day.

Spence emailed Jerry.

“It’s good you cleaned the air filters, but that wouldn’t affect the water pressure,” Jerry wrote, continuing their troubleshooting discussion. “Check the pressure where the water enters the house. It should be eighty pounds.” 

Spence monitored the incoming water pressure. We had forty to fifty pounds per square inch whether or not the geothermal furnace was running—lower than ideal, average for us.

“Clean the water filters where the water enters the house,” Jerry wrote next.

Oops.

Spence Unscrewing Ceramic Candle Canister

We’d installed Doulton water filters August 2, 2012. Once or twice a year I replaced the sediment filter in one blue canister and scrubbed the ceramic candles in the other two. This guaranteed our water at 99.99% purity. Because we live downhill from cow pastures and a gas well, we boil drinking water then refilter it to be extra safe.

Last spring, medical appointments distracted us. Spence was waiting for a referral to a surgeon concerning his hernia. I busied myself with pre-op preparations at Magee Women’s Hospital in Erie. In the fall we had surgeries and our recoveries took priority. Cleaning water filters never occurred to me. If it had, the task wouldn’t have been possible—too strenuous for our temporary restrictions. 

We’d recovered and could have managed the job. We just had to shut the indoor water off while I cleaned the filters outside at the cistern hydrant.

But it snowed. 

We lived with the trickle until sunny March 20 when the air temperature reached the mid 40s. Welcoming the sunshine, Spence dashed out to repair Mr. Hooper, the hoop house. Winter winds had broken the connections in the PVC frame making the plastic roof sag.

I bundled—boots, jeans, two turtlenecks, a sweatshirt, a fleece jacket, and the knit tam mom made me. No gloves. Lugging rags, scour pads, two empty buckets, a replacement sediment filter, and replacement candles, I crossed the soggy grass, setting my load halfway between the hydrant and Mr. Hooper. I yelled to Spence. “Would you unscrew the canisters for me?”

Back in the basement, he loosened the canisters with the plastic wrench then his hands. We walked as if on a tightrope carrying each canister to avoid spilling the water or breaking the ceramic candles. They are hollow, about ten inches long, one inch in diameter, and very fragile.

I started with the easiest—the polyester sediment filter, which turns earth brown with use. Normally, gripping and pulling removes it. This year the slimy, mud-covered filter slipped through my fingers. Twice. I upended the canister and, thud-splat, dumped it. 

Canister by the Cistern Hydrant

Windblown maple leaves lined with snowflakes lay in the shade of the old pine stand by the hydrant. Instead of splashing, like I do on balmy spring or fall days, I filled the canister with a couple inches of water and toted it into the sunshine. My fingertips touched the wet rag and snowmelt water as little as possible, to wipe off the mud. 

Spence passed by when I’d removed all the mud and installed a new white filter. “Need any help?”

I handed the blue canister to him. “This one’s ready to install.”

Easing the first ceramic filter set out, I twisted a candle to free it from the holder. The candle didn’t budge. I twisted again. Crack. The top broke off leaving a jagged stub. Gritting my teeth but reassuring myself that’s why I brought the replacements, I unscrewed the others and placed them in an empty bucket. I covered the sharp edges with the scour pad and muscled the stub out. 

A chickadee sang hey sweetie and I dipped the first candle into water in the canister to scrub the treated clay, darkened by harmful chemicals and impurities it magically caught from water passing through. Rinsing the candle in the cold cistern water, I rushed back to the sunshine for more scrubbing. Shish-shish. Clay splattered boots, jeans, and jacket. My fingers numbed. One by one, chestnut brown candles turned creamy white.

Shivering, I scrubbed the second set. Spence and I repeated the tightrope-walking to take the ceramic filter canisters inside. I watched him screw them in place while rubbing my tingling, throbbing fingers.

We had clean water filters. Did we solve the water flow problem?

The following day Spence took the first shower. “The water gushed. We’ll see if it lasts.”

I showered second. Water pounded me. 

The real test came Friday, laundry day. Following morning ablutions and toilet flushings for three, I lingered in the shower, luxurious again. I washed breakfast dishes, scrubbed the cat fountain, and refilled it. Dreading a trickle after the morning’s draining of the water tank, I turned the utility tub tap for pre-soaking Spence’s garden jeans and the socks he scuffs around the house in like dust mops. Water spouted with fire hose force. I didn’t have to wait until mid afternoon for my first laundry load.

The clean filters flushed away trickle trouble for now. I learned my lesson. My google calendar for September 20 reads: Clean water filters on a sunny 70° day.

Candles Ready to Clean and Replacement Candle Ready to Insert

 Reflections - The Nature of Things

Rills and the Gray Squirrel

Spence is for the birds. I’m against the bears. This sparked lively debates when winter rained into spring.

Visions of bears swirling through my head made my voice quaver. “It’s time to take the bird feeder down.” 

He watched a tufted titmice swoop in for a sunflower seeds and soar off. “The birds enjoy the seeds.”

“Hungry bears will roam soon. They’ll smell the seeds and traipse up the ramp.”

“Not yet. Don’t worry.”

This annual debate happens because we live in bear country. Hungry bears wake from hibernation and search for food—bird feeders are handy reservoirs. Neighbors on either side of us had spied bears drinking sugar water from their hummingbird feeders. A neighbor further down the road saw a bear rip off the top of a plastic garbage can and paw out her entire year’s supply of birdseed. I didn’t want bears smelling the sunflower seeds and making Wells Wood a stop on their circuit.

Our debate didn’t occur this year.

Winter dumped snow but warmer than normal temperatures melted it within a day if not hours. A bear could have left its den multiple times. When we went for our daily health walks, I only strapped on boot cleats once to totter over an ice-covered road. A month before calendar spring, Spence brought the bird feeder in at dinnertime.

The four times we had bear visits, black bears came at night. One came so quietly we wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t left poop in the pansy planter. The second bumped around, left a swatch of hair, and broke the gate which Spence had built to keep our old cats George and Emma in. Another bear, Spence observed lumber across the deck on all fours, round the corner to the porch, and search through buckets—for seed presumably.

The fourth, a huge black bear, scared me. He strolled up the ramp while Spence and I were sitting in the great room. Paralyzed in my chair, I hissed, “Turn off the lights.”

Much slower than I wanted, Spence walked to the switch by the front door, turned off the inside lights, and turned on the porch lights.

The bear didn’t amble to the porch. He stood on his hind legs, put a paw on either side of the empty bird feeder, and licked the perches with his long pink tongue.

Because Spence brought the feeder in at dinnertime and took it out at breakfast, I didn’t worry about sniffing bears.

I hadn’t counted on a different intruder.

The first week of March, our three tabby cats raced to the sliding glass door. Rather than stare at the chickadees swooping in, they glared at the deck floor.

An eastern gray squirrel scooped dropped sunflower seeds off the deck with its paws.

Thud-thud. The cats slammed their bodies against the glass.

The squirrel slammed back.

Having tested the solidness of the glass door, the squirrel continued its dining.

Gilbert and Ande wandered off. They would check on the squirrel from time to time, but it wasn’t their priority.

Rills, however, sat his ground. Ears alert and tail tucked, his eyes never left the seed-scarfing intruder. Days passed and Rills watched the squirrel by the door even when Spence cut chicken in the kitchen. Usually, Rills jumps on the counter, pokes his head around Spence’s hand, and snatches a chunk. With the squirrel on the deck, the smell of chicken in the kitchen didn’t cause the cat to budge.

Carrying two handfuls of cut chicken pieces, Spence crossed to the tile by the sliding glass door and yelled, “Rillzie, Gilbert, Ande! Chicken.” He set the piles of chicken on the tile near Rills.

Ande and Gilbert scampered up, hunkered down, and gobbled.

Rills, small but feisty, would normally pounce on his brothers and hog the treat for himself. He didn’t. Instead, he kept his eyes on the squirrel. Rills didn’t trust that intruder.

His instincts were right.

While I was washing breakfast dishes one morning, I heard, scratch, scratch. BANG! I dropped the saucepan, wiped my hands, and hustled to the sliding glass door.

Curled over its back, the gray squirrel’s tail pointed toward the house. Scratch, scratch.

Rills threw himself against the glass door. BANG!

The squirrel scampered across the deck and hid behind an empty flower pot.

“Good boy, Rills.” I petted the house protector.

Rills crouched. He didn't relax.

 

Rills Observing Squirrel on Side of Door

The squirrel, unsatisfied with the seed droppings, climbed the log wall beside the sliding glass door. Rills leapt and slammed the glass beside the pointy head peeking out parallel to the feeder.

The squirrel scrambled down. It eyed the cat, eyed the feeder, and climbed again. Using the door handle as a perch, the squirrel stretched toward the sunflower seeds exposing part of its belly.

Bam. Rills smacked the glass, sending the rodent scrambling for cover once again.

Whenever the squirrel climbed and reached, Rills countered with a leap-bam-smack.

Despite bears in the neighborhood and this year’s early spring, I’m arguing with myself that I don’t need to fret about leaving the bird feeder out. Rills is keeping the log house and the feeder seeds safe from the eastern gray squirrel. The squirrel is removing extra sunflower seeds from the deck floor. Spence is bringing the feeder in every evening. I can probably trust Spence’s judgment.

Or not.

Spence, after all, delights when I get out of bed in the morning. “I love your hair!” I have to believe him. His eyes sparkle, his cheeks glow under his beard, and he gives me a hug.

My hair must be a mess. “I worked on it all night for you.”

“You look so cute.” He steps back. “A bird could nest in that hair.”

 

Janet's Morning Hair

 Reflections - Parable of the Glass of Water

Glass of Water

Doris gets the credit.

She—a kindred spirit, retired teacher, and ally in the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters group—bonded with me. I could count on Doris for lifting my spirits through frequent morning emails. Some made me smile at spelling inconsistencies (tough, cough, through, though). Others made me laugh at silly photos (a science project of eclipse stages illustrated with Oreo cookies). Her latest email made me think. It came the Tuesday after I posted “A Stressful Process.”

The story in that morning email described a young woman—most women are young compared to Doris and me—holding a glass of water over her head. The young woman twisted the half-empty, half-full explanation her audience expected by asking, “How heavy is this glass of water?” For her, the answer depended on how long the person held the glass. If I held the glass a minute—no problem. Holding it an hour, I would need Tylenol and a heating pad. A day? Impossible. I would have triggered an arthritis flare up long before the twenty-four hours ended.

In the parable the glass of water represented stress. Auditing French Creek Township’s finances had filled my glass. Grateful Doris sent me a health tip, I reasoned with myself. Put the glass down at night and rest. You won’t get overwhelmed. And put it down every fifteen minutes during the audit too.

Feeling my abdomen muscles unclench, I tapped computer keys to answer the email. “Love this, Doris. Thanks.”

“Thought you and your team could use that wisdom,” popped into my inbox.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Doris’s wise words cleared right off

I shut the computer down and drove to auditing determined to follow the advice of setting the glass of stress down every fifteen minutes or so. 

The complicated credit card bills altered my intentions. I thought we’d nearly tamed the messy paperwork last week, but I couldn’t find several purchases that Tuesday morning. Yikes! Maybe they were on the bills I left with Jill, the secretary-treasurer, when I met with her the previous night. Jill worked at home for a bank during the day. Would she have time to answer the phone let alone hand the bill to me? Panicked, I called her.

Her calm voice reassured me. “I’ll put the papers in the screen door for you. I got the Berkherhimer tax deposits for you this morning. I’ll include them too.”

After gulping lunch, I gripped the steering wheel and raced across County Line Road. My eyes scanned for state troopers and leaping deer. I turned onto Route 19 then crunched the gravel on Jill’s driveway. Slamming the car door, I hustled up the steps to her side porch, snatched the folder wedged between the screen door and frame, and grabbed the railing to plunge to the stone walkway.

A clucking chorus halted my descent. A turkey, her feathers tucked neatly, and a flock of hens strutted to the porch. The two roosters, that Jill warned me got aggressive, and the tom turkey must have stayed by the coop fifty yards away. The vocal birds stopped strutting but continued their serenade. 

In awe, I crept down the stairs and edged to the car. “Hey, ladies. Nice to see you too.”

They followed me on the grass by the path, across the gravel, and surrounded the Subaru. 

“Careful now. Stay clear of the car.” Wondering if one would flutter inside the front seat with me, I opened the door. “You don’t want to get smooshed.” When I started the engine, the turkey led the hens across the field. I gazed in wonder at the disappearing cluckers. They not only helped me put down the glass of stress, they emptied it. 

Turkey

Humming along with a CD of soothing Japanese folk tunes played on a koto, I drove back to the church. I didn’t need to watch for state troopers.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Turkey and hens cleared right off

Later that afternoon, Kathy, a neighbor and township supervisor, called. “Jill said yinz needed paperwork for the truck license. I drove to Michelle Brooks’s office in Greenville and got it.” Kathy panted as if she’d run part way. “It’s only a copy of the check and a letter explaining the expense. Is that good enough?”

“That’s perfect, Kathy. Thank you. I appreciate you making the extra trip.”

“Well,” her voice had a blush in it, “not everyone is so easy to please.”

“Being a supervisor has to be stressful with people complaining all the time.”

“Heck yeah,” her voice came through the phone line as a shout. We exchanged stressy work stories until I shared Doris’s glass of water email.

“You know, I try to do that,” Kathy said. “I relax with a movie or something else at night. But sure enough, I wake at three fretting about someone’s complaint.”

That evening, I decided to use the first half of Kathy’s routine. I snuggled under my princess blanket to watch Love by Accident. Then I fell asleep dreaming of Daphne and William pretending to date leading to real dating in the rom-com. 

Glass of stress raised aloft

Kathy’s evening movie cleared right off

Unfortunately, I adopted Kathy’s whole routine. At three o’clock I woke with my mind searching through the township’s credit card bills. And the waking up moments increased in frequency. My glass of water seemed to be a gallon jug. I scribbled notes on these”alarming” issues and took them to Jill the following Friday evening. 

She and her American Leopard Hound Rocky met me at the screen door. She smiled and stepped back. He wagged his tail and wriggled his brindled body. We gathered at the round dining room table—the computer by Jill, the file boxes by me, and Rocky stretched between us on the floor. Together we fixed miscoded expenditures and resolved item after item on the night-bothering list. Her comments, “Anyone can make mistakes,” “the credit card bills are so confusing,” and “I’m learning so much from doing the audit,” gave a brighter perspective to the paperwork strewn before us.

Midway through the evening, she walked to the kitchen. A clink-clink of ice cubes dropping into an empty glass woke Rocky. He trotted off to chomp on a cube. Setting a glass of water on the table for me, Jill provided a physical reminder to put down stress. I hadn’t needed that cue. The warm welcome she and Rocky had given plus the positive attitude toward the audit had already lowered my stress.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Jill and Rocky cleared right off

A week after Doris had sent the stress managing email, I returned to the church with every document in place and every transaction checked. The township books should balance. But our total differed from the bank’s by nearly four thousand dollars. Illogical. Frustrating. Nail biting. Contemplating pulling our hair out, we auditors pondered why it was fashionable for men to go bald but not women. I couldn’t put the stress glass down.

Scanning the ledgers for the umpteenth time that afternoon, Sandi yelled, “I found it.”

The ledger listed and expense twice, but Jill had paid it once. We tossed rulers into the air, pumped fists, and stamped feet. A similar error drew us even closer—but auditing isn’t a game of horseshoes.

March 1, we checked through the ledgers for the fifth time with no progress. Over lunch break, I spooned in chicken barley soup and called Jill. “Would you have time to email a pdf of another trial balance with the duplicate items removed? That might help us narrow it down.”

“Sure.” Her confident voice raised my hopes. “I had to make a cash deposit for the sale of the scraper at the bank. I’m driving home right now. I’ll email the balance sheet as soon as I get back.”

With Jill’s report in hand I met the other two auditors. Their faces drooped. Sandi shrugged off her coat, grabbed a file from the boxes, and searched yet again. Carol slumped into her chair and asked, “What do you suggest now?”

“Jill emailed a new trial balance.” I handed the papers to Carol. “Let’s start with the bank accounts. Heaven knows we checked the code totals enough times.”

Carol called off numbers.

I stared at our totals for bank reconciliations in my notebook. “Check . . . check . . . WAIT! What was that last one?”

Sandi set down her folder. Carol straightened in her chair and repeated the number. I threw my notebook into the air. “The general banking account is off!”

Normally that event would cause auditors apprehension.

With joyful hearts, however, we whipped out our calculators, decided we needed to find $147.49. A half hour search later, we found the culprit. One of five online fourth quarter debits hadn’t been listed in the ledger until January. The amount? Exactly $147.49. We had balanced the books to the penny.

Carol’s shoulders lowered. She smiled in relief. 

Sandi and I wiggled our fannies and whooped.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Balancing to the penny cleared right off

I’d wiggled and whooped the final stress away. That night, tucked under a warm flannel sheet, fleece blanket, and log cabin quilt, I drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep until 4:30 a.m. No ledger lines, no dollar amounts, no document search disturbed me. I just had to pee.

Doris gets the credit. She made the difference by sharing the parable. Raising and lowering that proverbial glass of stress, like performing dumbbell overhead presses, taught me a lesson I can apply to township audits in years ahead—even if the stress feels like a rain barrel of water. And I have eleven months of the lowered glass to relish.

Balanced to the Penny