Pick Your Poison

So maybe you heard this little story about my town. We didn’t have clean drinking water for… um, two days. I honestly had to stop and think about it. Surely, it was longer than that. Considering how… awful it was.

Maybe it’s part of my peevish attitude. Create a set of rules and I immediately start to think, why should I? Well, obviously, in this case, it was so I wouldn’t get sick. From drinking water. Water tainted by beaver pee.

All right. I know there is a risk. I understand that I’m not supposed to let the dog drink from the pond when I take her for walks… let her drink from the water in which she has occasionally left her own personal claim after drinking. Whatever. She’s a dog. She eats roadkill. My digestive system isn’t made of such tolerable enzymes. Even though I grew up putting my feet and whole body in ponds. Swallowing mouthfuls when my cousins splashed me to spit back out in a stream. Even though half my youth, I showered and cooked and did everything with water from a well. Water that didn’t run through a governed treatment plant. Okay, yes, a well is still different from an open air lake where… beavers pee. 

The hysteria… man, this is one of those times when I have to agree that New Englanders can be out of touch with the universe. At first it was mild amusement… but after the first three or so comments about a lack of coffee and the laborious task of boiling water (really? Seriously, really?), I was very annoyed with my fellow Bostonians. You know what water is doing further down the longitude line of this country? Flooding Tennessee? Or how about the black slick poisoning the Gulf Coast? Three days later and we can go back to our iced coffees. Three days later in NOLA and those animals with poisonous pee are dying.

UGH.

But it was a pain in the ass. It was a threat to our wellbeing. Not just our daily caffeination. It made life so difficult. We couldn’t wash our hands… people didn’t wash their hands because they were afraid of the bacteria in the water. What about the bacteria on those hands that weren’t killed with soap? I watched someone decide it was safer to wash her dish in boiled lukewarm water without soap than under hot faucet water with soap. Um… okay.

I recognize my teetering on hypocrisy right here. And stupidity. I’m not a scientist by any means. Maybe I was playing with fire when I said fudge it, I’m washing my damn dishes in hot tap water… with soap, air drying. I’m neurotic about how dishes are cleaned. I am thoroughly disgusted by the lackadaisical approach people take to it. I get paranoia about bacteria… or really, with me, it’s the removal of grime and unsightly spots. Even still… one would think that attitude would make me more empathetic to the public outcry for pure water.

Um. No.

Water breeds bad things. I know it does. I also know we put a lot of crap into our public water to destroy the natural ‘poison.’ And a lot of unnatural poison just stays in the water, in spite of ‘treatment.’ But there isn’t a public outcry about that. I don’t see the pharmaceutical companies ponying up to give us clean water until they rectify the problem. And they won’t. 

Granted, it isn’t just the water. We put deadly chemicals and bacteria into our bodies all the time. And you don’t see the manufacturers coming clean with what they are doing to our human frames. Indeed, they will go out of their way to tell us that it is somehow okay. That high fructose corn syrup is natural and perfectly okay. 

Yeah. Whatever.

Look, I’m just as guilty as the next person with selective attention to warnings and the following of rules. I get the impetus to follow the things that are easy… and the determination to ignore the recommendations that curb my appetite for pleasure. Starbucks and wineries profit very well by that flimsy amount of self-control. But, I will at least own up to the fact that the stuff ain’t natural. And really shouldn’t be in my bloodstream. 

We all pick our poison. I get that. I just… man, people can be really dumb sometimes. Thinking that water is deadly… right before they go and order a McDonald’s value meal.

A slight tangent about this aqualypse before I push it to the oblivion of memory. The action towards repair and information was swift and amazing. They fixed the broken pipe by Sunday night and tested the water on Monday so we could drink on Tuesday. And it was a branch of the government. Proving once again to this liberal that a government for the people really does take care of the people. Maybe we are oblivious in MA, but at least we have some state workers who work hard to preserve our idiocy.