Life's little way of making sure you are still paying attention

I have been dealing with a water leak since last weekend.  Last Saturday, I noticed seepage outside and so I called a guy that has done a fair amount of work for me to come fix the problem.  Well, he didn't check the meter after he made the fix, but I did and determined there was still a slight leak.  It appeared to be a small leak, and when I asked him how to convert the reading to gallons used it didn't seem like it was major urgent, and this guy was already committed to a couple other big jobs- so he told me my problem would have to wait until sometime this week.  Something told me to call the water dpt and check to see how much water had been used from the last reading (2 wks ago) from Tuesday and the lady tallied the numbers and told me I had used 25,000 gallons which meant over a $300 water bill.  I about fell off my chair in shock.  My average monthly bill is $40.

The water department said they would send someone out to the house to help troubleshoot where the leak was at so we could try and get it fixed.  There is over 500 ft of pipe going from the meter to the house and other outside structures.  It appears it has been somewhat diagnosed, the opinion was that the leak was not in the house or the lines going up to the house.  So, now we are basically going to have to go back and start at the area we know had the original leak and work from there.

So, what's interesting is I was just talking about trying to control things to have that predictability because predictability means stable or safe (relatively speaking anyways).  You can imagine how panicked a person would be when they are told that they have a huge unexpected bill and the problem causing it isn't even fixed yet.  Lots of emotions take place in these situations because I surely don't have a money tree out back.

After a few hours passed, I was able to try and get a better handle on things and realized I was just going to have to deal with this one step at a time.  What other choice do I have, right?  It too will pass as they say.

It would just be nice to have a longer stretch of calm between each new crisis.  I guess there must be something I need to learn in this experience.