When I'm lucky, a trickle flows through my apartment building's rickety pipes. When I'm really lucky, they deliver as much as 30-straight minutes worth of H2O. That's enough to fill up the 200-or-so-gallon tank in my kitchen and trigger a celebration.

I'll do something crazy and run the water until it gets really hot before I jump into the shower.

The tank is hooked up to the building's distribution system, so I don't have to be present to collect the precious liquid. In past rentals, I had no net. I did the mad Caracas water dash when the pipes mysteriously started flowing while I was home. I'd fill buckets, pots, coffee mugs—anything.