Thursday, June 26, 2003
Sweet Water
Most people I know filter their water. I filter my water… I use a Brita filter… it’s pronounced with the short ‘i’ sound, like the ‘i’ in Brit Pop… when it should be pronounced with a long ‘i’… like the ‘i’ in bright. But if I were to pronounce it correctly… “Do you carry any Bright-a filters?” People would look at me funny and not know what I was talking about… I would be the crazy one. So I follow the crowd and call it Britta in public and in private, to my cats, I call it Brighta.
But in this modern day, why do I need a Brighta filter at all? Our water is disgustingly clean… clean enough to drink certainly. During the American Civil War, the Confederates ran a prison camp for Yankee POWs. As the general condition of the Confederacy declined, the already appalling conditions at Andersonville became akin to the worst concentration camp. Prisoners were housed in a large open area where the only source of water was a stream that ran through the center of the prison. Needless to say there was also a dearth of toilet facilities, so that most of the human waste ended up in the stream. Men had to drink from this fetid water, or die of thirst. Many died of dysentery and cholera… diseases who’s worst feature is the creation of more foul human waste that the disease uses as a vector for new infection. While I doubt that a Brit-ta filter would have made a dent in that water, those men would have been grateful for any improvement. These men would have religiously changed the filter every six months just like the instructions say.
I am very bad about changing the filter on my Brite-a. I let them go for years, until they hold more mold and algae then they supposedly clean out of the city water. It’s like seasoning… the water doesn’t taste right until it has that green flavor.
Straight out of the tap, Seattle water is the best water I have ever tasted. When I first moved here eight years ago, I dreaded that first drink, knowing that with any long distance displacement, the water always tastes strange for a few weeks. The water in LA for instance is foul. If you hold a glass beneath your nose for three minutes, your eyes will tear up and turn red, irritated by the chlorine fumes. That first taste of Seattle water, however, was brilliant. Advertising slogans whipped through my head, filled with words like ‘sparkling fresh,’ ‘mountain spring,’ and ‘clearly refreshing;’ and they were distributing this shit for free, through the pipes straight to my tap.
Inevitably, local news programs lead off their Fear at 10 broadcasts with leaders like: “What’s in your tap water? The answer might shock you!” And they will list: lead, mercury, human feces, scary sounding bacteria and parasites. Sure these things are a hundred times below the national standards, and sure they are in such small quantities that they can not hurt you… but you should buy a Britttta Brand Water Pitcher ™ anyway, so that your apple cheeked baby child won’t drink human feces. Never mind that just yesterday, the apple cheeked baby child was spreading his own human feces all over your white couch, or the fact that he was digging through the catbox and tasting the contents… we must protect our children from bacteria.
The human immune system is a funny thing. It gains immunity to disease through exposure. That’s how vaccines work, by shooting us full of almost dead viruses so that our dumb little T-cells can taste the disease, play with it for a while like a stoner kicking around a hackey sack, then flush it, bored to tears by this silly little bug. As infants, we receive some immunity instruction through the antibodies contained in mother’s milk. So what do we have today: infants who are not breast fed, who’s first immunosuppressive reactions are induced by vaccination, covering only a narrow set of dangerous childhood diseases, and then raised in homes that are cleaned with Clorox ™ wipes, anti-bacterial soaps, detergents, one-use anti-bacterial cutting boards, sterilized cutlery, anti-bacterial toilet paper, bed sheets, processed irradiated foods and… Britta water.
Are children really getting more allergies today than in previous generations? Or are their immune systems just bored and looking for some way to pass the time? “Oh look… cat dander!”
I will continue to use my Brighta pitcher… and when my sink is too full of dirty dishes to refill it, I’ll drink from the tap without a second thought. The Bright-a water is cold, and on a sunny day, that’s the real value.
