If you've ever been involved in any sort of home construction, you know it always takes longer than the contractors say it will. For the past 10 weeks, the Tobaks have been doing a swimming pool project. So far, so good.
Last night, as the Bay Area cooled down from a three-day heat wave, my wife said, "It would sure be nice to get water in the pool in the next two weeks."
"What do you mean?" I exclaimed, "You know the pool company is scheduled to come out tomorrow and fill it up on Tuesday. Two weeks? We'll be swimming in two days!"
"Uh huh," she said.
The next morning, my wife pulled the pillow off my snoring head and announced, "We have no water."
I replied with a blank, bleary-eyed stare.
"The pool guys are all here and we have no water."
"Okay," I replied, "I'm getting up."
Apparently, a stuck check valve in our irrigation system had been dumping precious water faster than our well pump could pump it. Our holding tanks were dry.
No water meant the pool guys couldn't do their thing. An hour later, the whole gang packed up and left.
When you live in a rural mountainous area, this sort of thing happens from time to time. That means every few years.
So I'm sitting here trying to figure out how my wife knew something was going to happen. She couldn't possibly have known. Wait, I know. She sabotaged the irrigation system just to appear prescient. Nah, that's just crazy.
When I asked her about it, she said she'd just had a feeling.
That got me thinking: Is there such a thing as intuition? And if so, what is it and how does it matter to you and me? ... Read more
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