Nor Any Drop to Drink

I see where the purity police have zeroed in on bottled water as their new target of choice. Claiming that importing water leaves a costly carbon footprint and that the bottles are generally not recycled, several municipal governments, including that of San Francisco, have decided that instead of buying bottled, they will insist on tap water, at least in their little fiefdoms. And of course the eco-Nazis have taken up the trumpets.

This alarms me. Practically the only thing I drink is water, certainly it's the liquid of choice at Casa de Mojo, and I'm fed up with the holier than thou ecology saints telling me what I should and shouldn't imbibe or eat. I drink bottled water because it IS the only thing I drink (well, lemonade in the summer and skim milk all year round). I know that NYC water is among the purest and cleanest in the nation. But it comes through hundred-year-old pipes in my building and neighborhood, and it just doesn't taste all that pleasant, with a kind of flat, greasy aftertaste.

Evian and Poland Spring, on the other hand, my preferred brands, taste light and clean: when water's all you drink, you get into this sort of wine connoisseur head space. I could do a blindfold taste test and tell you what water it is just by the mouth feel and overtones: I don't care for sparkling waters, and most of the new natural-spring brands just don't cut it for me. Processed tap water swill like Aquafina and Dasani are beneath contempt and certainly beneath drinking, unless I was stuck in the Mojave with nothing else to ease my parched and cracking throat.

So I'm not knuckling under to the water terrorists. I wish that my Evian and Poland Spring bottles could indeed be recycled...why else are we in NYC obliged to sort out all the plastic bottles if not for recycling? Exercise? A test? If they're not being recycled, I for one would like to know why.

Well, they can all go to hell with no canteens. I am continuing to guzzle bottled H2O at my usual pace, which is about a gallon a day. I sip all day long, keeping it cool in a lovely tall stainless steel thermos (which now that I look at it was made in CHINA, so I may have to do some rethinking), sometimes with ice made of itself (not tap ice), and I drink it seriously when thirsty or having something to eat. I'm probably the best-hydrated person you have ever met. Good for the skin, too.

Drink up, me hearties, yo H(2)O!