Confessions of a Water Snob

For many years, I had water delivered to my home.  I got the traditional 5 gallon jugs for in-home use and a 12 pack of plastic sport bottles for on-the-go occasions.  Tap water was not only inconvenient, but it didn’t taste that great.  I could barely stomach ice cubes made with tap water, let alone brush my teeth with it!  (But I did, just for the record)

 

Earlier this year, I learned that our landfills became overwhelmed with these plastic bottles.  Sure they were recyclable, but millions of people were buying and consuming water at such a high rate that our recycle systems could not keep up.  Most public places still only provide standard issue trash receptacles.  At home, it’s a different story.  Waste management provides each household with recycling bins in most cities.  Let it be mentioned here that while in Yosemite this August, not only could one could find recycling bins in every place imaginable but they were separated by aluminum, plastic, and glass!

 

So I dropped some coin on those reusable plastic bottles, e.g. Nalgene, Camelbak, Sigg.  We continued to get our water delivered, but now we were filling our own bottles.  We got a variety of sizes and colors. We kept one at work.  We always had one with us when leaving the house and we used them at the gym.  We were hip.  We were green!

 

So one day we are shopping at a store-closing sale.  It was there I spotted a NEW opportunity to bring my environmentalism to a new level:  the Brita water filter.  Now we could save a few bucks each month by firing the water guy!   Plus, it was on sale so I felt ahead of the game.

 

When we put out our last empty bottle, I felt a sense of liberation. Like going off the grid and cheating the system.  Okay, maybe not quite that dramatic, but after almost 13 years of water service, I was very excited.

 

So now we were drinking filtered tap water.  It tasted OKAY and I figured I would get used to it eventually.  I realized that I preferred it as cold as possible since I had discovered an odd odor from water left out over night on my nightstand in one of those reusable plastic bottles.  Not appetizing, but was it normal?  One morning as I left for work, I nearly stumbled over a 5 gallon bottle outside my door.  Did my wife forget to cancel?  Yes, she confessed and apologized profusely, knowing how important this endeavor was to me.  I left it out there for a couple of days trying to figure out what to do… can you return unused water?  I decided it was too much of a hassle to call back the water guy and finally lugged it inside and affixed it atop the thirsty, empty water dispenser.  Then a sudden urge came over me. I grabbed a glass, filled it to the rim with the bottled water and chugged it down like there was no tomorrow.  It was delicious even at room temp.  I missed it so much.  I was home again.  How could I have ever abandoned it?

 

After 1 week of guzzling this delicious elixir of the gods, I realized I was feeling better.  I had been experiencing some, ahem, digestive issues that I wrote off as a bug.  It could’ve been a bug, but coincidently, all was back to normal after I stopped drinking the filtered tap.

 

I am curious about that tap water, though.  I plan to have it tested with and without the filter.  After all, it is LA DWP and not even their employees will drink it.