Now it's the water

This may become a regular blog feature here at the rate things are going: signs that the economy is bad. First we had beer drinkers switching to cheap beer, then it turns out that people are using the rebate checks for stuff like gas (instead of spending on useless shit from retail stores), and fathers were not getting a whole lot of love on Father's Day due to, you guessed it, the economy. So, what is the next sign of the impending economic apocalypse? Water, bottled water to be specific. CBS News is picking up an AP story reporting that "Tapped Out Consumers Spurn Bottled Water." In plain English folks, buying bottled water is now too expensive and the poor snobs now have to drink it out of the faucet. What is the world coming to when you can't even spend your money on some bottled water packed in disposable bottles that just end up in a landfill for the most part? In a statement of the obvious:

"Heather Kennedy, 33, an office administrator from Austin, Texas, said she used to drink a lot of bottled water but now tries to drink exclusively tap water.

'I feel that (bottled water) is a rip-off," she said in an e-mail. "It is not a better or healthier product than the water that comes out of my tap. It is absurd to pay so much extra for it.'"

No shit Sherlock. How long did it take for you to figure that out? It was always a rip-off. I have been saying that for years, and I don't buy bottled water. I drink it out of the faucet, which by the way is apparently a shocking act to at least one of my coworkers who, when she saw me filling my plastic (refillable) bottle at the faucet in the break room, asked me, "are you actually drinking that?" in a tone that conveyed I may have as well been filling my bottle with poison. I simply told her that I was, and if I happen to keel over on the floor, she knew what may have caused it. By the way, the bottle I use at work was free; it was a "gimme" I got at some campus event, so my water drinking is even cheaper.

Now, personally I don't use a water filter at home or work. But I hear that even if you must have a filter, it is still more cost-efficient than buying the cases of water (the article does mention this). I am trying to drink more water these days, and I am slowly getting there, especially at work where I put some ice (made with tap water) in the bottle, fill it from the faucet, and then drink throughout the morning.

So folks, what say you? Get your water out of the faucet and help the environment in the process. Now, if I could cut back on the green tea I like, which I do buy by the case for my lunch, that might help me a bit more. Wonder if maybe brewing it by the batch and filling a bottle or such might help, but that is another post. In the meantime, go have some water.

By the way, here is the link to the Tappening site mentioned in the article, which has a campaign to get people to drink tap water.