A Tale of a Water Test Gone Bad

Jamie and I found out at our home study visit that we were going to have to get our water tested before approval because we are on a well. Very surprisingly, my initial reaction was totally laid back. I was all like, "No worries, what's one more thing, it will be good to get our water tested anyway."

Well, then I found out the cost and the procedure. Let's just say we felt a lot like Bill Nye the Science Guy. I even had to wear latex gloves. It involved a cooler with ice, sample bottles with perservatives, filling up water to an exact line (couldn't be below or above) and running our water for long amounts of time. I had to fight the urge to put on a white coat and wear plastic goggles and do the evil science laugh. You know...muuuaaahahahaa.

So, I traveled to deliver the samples packed in ice with in the alloted time frame. I had to sign that I was the one who took the samples and date and initial everything.

Then, a couple of days later we hear that one of the tests is positive. My first thought "Of course it is." Because really, it is the Autry way. And I'm sure you all wouldn't be surprised to know either that it was the most expensive test that we needed to redo. Seriously people, you probably don't want to be our friends.

We were told we needed to "decontaminate" our well. I felt like I was in the middle of a CSI episode. I would totally be that blonde girl with the southern accent.

Decontaminate is really a fancy word for "pour bleach down your well". So this is what we did. Or so we thought.

How the "decontamination" works (I really like using that word...it sounds official) is that you pour the bleach down your well, and then you run all the water faucets in your house until you smell the beach. After you smell it, you turn the faucets off and leave everything off for 7-24 hours. The bleach is supposed to kill any sort of bacteria we could possibly have.

Jamie went out and poured the bleach down the well. We turned all the water on and waited and waited. We kept smelling and nothing. At one point, I said "I think I smell bleach" and so we shut the system down. We left and went about our business for the day.

On my way home that evening, I got a call from Jamie. He said "Well, you didn't smell bleach this morning because I poured the bleach down the wrong pipe."

He evidently poured it down a cut off to our house. I mean really who can blame him. He looked down the pipe and saw water, it was an honest mistake. The bleach then seaped into our side yard and killed lots of grass.

Oh, just a typical day in the life of the Autry family.

Needless to say, we had to do the "decontamination" again. I feel the need to put quotation marks around that word. Much like Dr. Evil on Austin Powers with the word "lazer" or "laser" (which one is it, not sure).

We smelled the bleach almost immediatly this time. We're pretty sure we did it correct. I had to repull the sample yesterday and I took it to the lab. We hope the "decontamination" worked and that the test will be negative.

We will totally use this against our child when he/she is a teenager and misses his curfew. "Do you know that we had to get our water tested and our well decontaminated just to get you, and this is how you repay us".

Oh, I kid. I'll just let them know how much they cost.