Rat bastards at Indiana American Water are running amok.

Before trying to piece together yesterday's most recent Indiana American Water farce yesterday, it is useful for readers to know that Thursdays and Fridays are very busy days for eateries, like the five such establishments located on the 100 block of East Market in New Albany.

These eateries had been informed that IN-AWC would be performing maintenance on water lines beginning on Thursday morning ... except that the Frenchman was not informed and had started cooking for the day. He was visited by the health department, which gently broke the news. Other establishments made provision to be closed and lose money, understanding that there could be a boil advisory extending past lunchtime on Friday.

The "work" started, but some time around noon, IN-AWC had elected to not continue with the announced work, presumably because it was discovered that a valve was damaged and inoperative.

Oops. Giggle. Sorry you went and got all closed up and s**t.

Of course, a similar occurrence didn't stop IN-AWC from pursuing its holy (hole-y) writ back in March 2010 on Plaza Drive, when it found a gnarly rusted valve, shrugged and snapped it clean anyway, cost NABC an entire Friday of Gravity Head business, and characterized the neglected valve as an act of God rather than an act of lazy human maintenance ... but I digress.

Now it is suggested that IN-AWC will come back to the task next week, hopefully on Monday with the advisory into Tuesday, which would cost the businesses far less in terms of lost business than another Thursday/Friday scheduling, which prompts a question: Why hit them on their busy days, anyway?

Answer: Because like all public utility monopolies, it isn't about the customers, is it? Indiana American Water raises unresponsiveness to unscaled heights of opaque responsibility-dodging, as when, in effect, the company classifies all episodes of disrupted service as acts of God, not man, and urges customers to have adequate insurance to cover the water company's own incompetence and outright negligence.

As trenches are cut across newly paved streets throughout the city and left unattended for weeks on end, is it too late to advocate IN-AWC's nationalization?