People That I Can't Hang Out With (Part VII)

Last week's discussion, at it's core, was about the decision one must make when faced with the choice between a sub-par product or nothing at all. Basically, there are two schools of thought: That something - anything - is better than nothing. Or that a person must set standards for themselves, and never settle for less than those standards, even if it means going without. My personal philosophy is mostly inline with the first mindset, and I believe that the post reflected this. But, I also fully concede that there's nothing wrong with having standards, and never selling yourself short of them. In fact, it's pretty admirable. I wasn't really arguing for one philosophy over the other, rather, the main point I was trying to convey was that if you do go the second route, just don't be a dick about it.

What we didn't really discuss at the time was that there was always a third option. For the sake of making my point, the scenario I laid out was that your only choice was substandard beer or nothing at all. But, let's not forget, in reality everyone has a tap, and the third choice is always water.

And I don't much care for water.

I don't really know why. It's essentially free, it's can be very refreshing, and it's good for you. And yet, too many nights I have opened my fridge to find the last carton of Tropicana already gone, only to spend an embarrassing amount of time and energy trying to come up with a solution - any solution - that would make me not have to resort to a plain old glass of water. Almost without fail, the 'alternative' ends up being the worst thing I have ever tasted. Far worse than any glass of water could ever be. In fact, following a particularly horrendous stretch of failure, I now keep an 'emergency stash' of Kool-Aid mix hidden away. Just in case.

I'm aware of how ridiculous this all sounds. I'm not here to try and convince you that I am in the right in this situation. I know that I am not. But that doesn't mean that the enlightened ones that only drink the natural clear stuff are a perfect bunch either. Oh, far from it. In fact, there's a particular breed that not only can I not endorse. I flat out can't hang out with them either.

They are the bottled water purists.

Yes, on paper, this sounds like it's just going to be a lazy rehash of the same Beer Snob post from last week. But these people deserve to be shunned separately. They deserve to be shamed. Because water is water, people. And if you 'love' it out of a bottle but would sooner cut off your own arm than drink a glass filled from a tap, then your issues run much deeper than I could ever possibly hope to shed light on in a simple blog post.

Piggy-backing my sentiments from last week, sure, if you've got a choice, by all means, reach for the bottle. If you're in Mexico, yes, I wouldn't advise taking a drink from a random hose you find on the street either. But if there's not a bottle in sight, you're thirsty, claim to prefer water, and aren't in a third world country? Just turn on the damn tap. The water that comes out has a pretty decent regulation system in place, and the chances of you catching full-blown AIDS is pretty low.

Besides, think about how much extra waste goes into bottled water. Between the factory that bottles it, the trucks that ship it, the plastic they wrap it in, and the very bottles themselves… it's ironically doing an awful lot of indirect, secondhand damage to the very mountain streams that it claims to have been bottled from.

Bottled water is the biggest con that an industry has ever pulled. And society took the bait; hook, line and sinker. Again, as a guy that mostly shuns water, I don't really have a horse in this race. So, I'll go easy on you if, for whatever reason, you claim to simply prefer it from a bottle instead of a tap. It's your money, and as we discovered last week, I'm the last person that should be judging how you spend it. But, if you're thirsty, really thirsty, and the only option is tap water or nothing, and you choose to go without? You got problems, kid.