Seriously! It's Water People!

So I'm standing in the grocery store last night with my most wonderful wife pondering deep things such as, why can't I have some Little Debbie snacks, when i found myself staring at an enormous wall of bottled water. Water bottles in every shape and size you can imagine, some from as far away as artisan wells in Chile. I didn't know they had artisan wells in Chile. One was even called something like Black Mnt Water, stamped with a seal declaring it drawn from the Asheville municipal water supply. Granted, we have one of the cleanest water supplies in the country, but, for real? Last time I checked, we were still in the grips of a severe drought around here. Water restrictions and the works. How does the city of Asheville sell something that really isn't theirs, that we need, to outside parties? I found the whole thing odd and I'm going to do some more checking on it to see what kind of distribution it has.

All this got me to thinking more, as tends to happens when the sawdust smokes! What kind of idiots are we, as the American public. Over 160ft of aisle space in one grocery store was devoted to bottled water. That doesn't even include endcaps and random displays throughout the store. How much of this water is any better than the average city's tap water? I, for one am generally not guilty of buying bottled water, but will on occasion or use it if it's given to me. That's why God brought along people smart enough to make something like the Nalgene bottle, something that's reusable.

Must be a hell of a margin on bottled water, because the competition is fierce! I counted over 25 different companies and about 15 distributors.... for water.... in a bottle..... I can just imagine some jackass commenting on how they prefer European bottled water over the American aquifers, or some other equally revolting crap! It's water! Not wine or not beer, water! Neither of those flow freely from our faucets, although that makes an interesting mental image. Hmmmm.... maybe all those "lifetime in a landfill" commercials are getting to me. More likely it's all the assholes buying something we already have at home. They're just too damn lazy to put it in a bottle! Just another symptom of a disposable society.

Wow, I almost sound like I should join PETA or something! : )