Water in America

You watch the news, and you see disasters all over the world. It won’t happen here, you say.

Friday, we heard that our water was full of bugs. This is a long way from your house being covered by 15 feet of mud, but still not good. But just a tiny inconvenience, you think. We are in great shape, we think, because we have four 5-gallon jugs of Culligan water in the house. No problem.

But we use a dishwasher, and you can’t feed it with bottled water. We have an automatic ice-maker, and you can’t fill that with bottled water.

I grew up in a house with neither, and we never missed them, but now we are running out of dishes. And ice. You don’t really know how to brush your teeth without the faucet running. What do you do about the dog’s water dish? The water is being overchlorinated, so you can’t wash your clothes (at home). Or fill the fish tank.

You think about people in the world who have no clean water, ever, and suffer from all kinds of diseases. And your situation does not look so bleak.

Then you think about the neighbors, and you go to offer them one of your precious jugs of water. No thanks, they say, we have plenty of beer, we’re good. America. What a country!

Dennis DeMattia

Spokane