Читать книгу Standpipe - David Hardin - Страница 13

FIVE

A case of twenty-four sixteen-ounce bottles of water weighs about thirty pounds. Stacking reduces the footprint, but concentrates structural load in one small area. It exerts pressure on the bottles in the bottommost cases, increasing the risk of leakage and water damage to subfloor and joists. Distribute your water—don’t stack the cases too high, I advise people living in tiny bungalows, claustrophobic flats, cramped apartments, and ramshackle mobile homes. Living room floor space is given to entertainment centers, oxygen machines, cluttered coffee tables, sway-backed sofas, cockeyed recliners, space heaters, wheelchairs, walkers, toys, game systems, bird cages, Richard Serra-scale flat-screen televisions, pet beds, playpens, hospital beds, bureaus, book cases, animal crates, grandfather clocks, curio cabinets, murky aquariums, and dinette sets.

Kitchen counter space goes to coffee makers, blenders, toasters, pots and pans, liquor and wine bottles, plastic food storage containers, recycling, canned goods, spice racks, dry goods, dirty dishes, sacks of pet food, utensils, glassware, and bottles of medication. The rest is a warren of negative space, narrow pathways angling to back bedrooms and bathrooms. Staircases leading to upper bedrooms and basements are home to shoes, cases of soda and beer, bundles of toilet paper, tools, mops, buckets, books, and brimming laundry baskets.

For the elderly and disabled, water stacked anywhere other than in the kitchen requires many trips back and forth to retrieve one or two bottles at a time, working their way through a shrink-wrapped case too heavy to move on their own.

Cases of water, like breeding rabbits, can swamp a dwelling in no time. The minimum weekly amount of water required depends on the number of people living under one roof. Summer heat doubles the need. No man is an island, except here—a people surrounded by water—John Donne, reduced to straight man.