Please, make the clicking stop!

Our old water meter died about a month ago. But it took weeks to discover the corpse. When we finally realized it had stopped giving readings to the water company -- they had been estimating our water bill for three months, it was encrusted with lime like a stalactite. It drip, drip, dripped water onto the floor.
The water company sent a repair person bright and early Friday morning.
"It's the meter," he said, matter-of-factly, shutting down the valve and unscrewing the pipes. Water flowed into a bucket. He retrieved a new meter from his truck and screwed it into place, then drove off into the sunrise.
Left behind is a resplendent new model. It is gold and when the sun catches it through the basement window, it glows. To all appearances, it is terribly modern. We soon discovered, it also has a special feature the old one never had.
This one doesn'twork in silence
The first evening with our gold water meter, my husband, John, and I were sitting at the computer in the basement and heard a loud click-click-clicking.
"What's that?" he asked.
"I don't know," I answered walking toward the clatter.
It led me to the water meter, the dial of which was spinning wildly. And for each notch it spun, it clicked again.
Click, click, click. Click, click, click.
"Is there water running?" I asked.
"Yeah, I hear it."
"I don't hear anything."
"Yeah, Hannah's taking a shower."
Click, click, click, click. It occurred to me -- this is the sound of money leaving our pockets. I felt a bit ill. "No, she isn't," I said. "I just saw her; she's getting dressed. "
John listened again. "You're right; I don't hear anything." The clicking had stopped.
"You know, if this is broken, we're paying for water we're not using!" I said as I ran to the stairs. "Hannah! Did you just flush the toilet?"
She hesitated. "Ye-es?" It was the kind of reply that said, "Are you my mother or an escapee from a mental asylum?"
What is the valueof each little click?
I raced back to the meter and looked. I had no idea how many hundredths of a cubic foot of water it took to flush a toilet. But it had been too many. Way too many. And to think, all this time, we had ignored that little dial on the water meter! There would be no ignoring it now.
Later, John went upstairs and brushed his teeth. Again. Click, click, click, click. I wondered if there was a ratio I could apply that would make sense. Like, a dime a click.
The toilet flushed again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine... I stopped counting clicks at 50 and shook my head knowingly. "It better not be a dime a click, or even a penny a click," I grumbled.
When the dishwasher went on, I thought I'd have a heart attack. I needed ear plugs. It occurred to me, I had better not be in the basement the next time my daughter takes a shower. That would be like Chinese water torture. We have long argued over these marathons, but, until now, ascribing an exact cost to them had been beyond reach.
In the future though, we would be able to be specific. "That shower cost us 2,500 clicks!" we can groan. It'll be like a meter in a taxi.
I have never cared about paying for water before; at least not more than once a month, anyway. But, now, it's in my face.
This concept could spread
What if the electric meter made noise as well, and the gas meter?
I can see myself turning out lights whenever I leave a room, shutting off CD players when the CD ends, turning off the range when the food is almost done cooking, dropping the thermostats to the proper 68-degree conservationist setting.
And what if there was a clicking noise when you placed an order in a restaurant? It could click by entr & eacute;e price. Bells could go off for beverages and desserts. Appetizers could sound a gong. Or better yet, the higher the fat content, the more it could click. It could deafen you into fitness. It could pester you into saving.
Going to buy a car? Not if it means listening to 250,000 clicks!
This sound thing could be revolutionary. ... I kind of want our old meter back.
murphy@vindy.com