Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink -- A guest blog post by McHeeb
Arjewtino asked me to write this guest blog entry. Well...I'm going to say he asked. It technically doesn't count as “asking” if the “request” doesn't end in a question mark, but rather is punctuated with the word “bitch!”
There is a veritable cornucopia of topics I could discuss here, but I decided to make this blog entry DC-centric as Arjewtino is a D-list weblebrity in the DC Blog circuit. So, here we go my droogies. Strap in and hang on.
A while back I got this pamphlet in the mail. It was kinda long and had lots of words. It didn't have any pictures or nothin'. The words were tiny, too. Reading it was gonna be work. But it might be important! What to do? After a bit of thought, I came up with an ingenious solution: I placed the pamphlet on my kitchen counter. “I'll read it later. It's probably not important,” I said to myself. Ingenious.
A while later, I eventually got around to reading it. Here's how it read:
“On September 23, tests showed an increase in coliform bacteria, resulting in a violation of a monthly federal drinking water standard – the first violation for DC WASA following 95 consecutive months of surpassing the standard.”
Ok.... so, I don't quite get what this means. I'm pretty sure that "Coliform bacteria" is bad for me. I mean, I'm not a fancy big city lawyer or nothin', but I've never heard a cereal commercial bragging, "Now with MORE Coliform bacteria!" Secondly, they violated a federal standard. And you know that "standard" wasn't that good to begin with. So here I am drinking water full of fucking bacteria, and I'm supposed to give these fucking douchebags a pat on the back because they haven't had a violation in the past 95 months? YOU ARE FUCKING NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE FUCKING BACTERIA IN THE FUCKING WATER THAT PEOPLE FUCKING DRINK.
The pamphlet continues:
“This is Not a Health Emergency!”
Yeah. That superfluous exclamation mark makes me reeeaally inclined to believe you. Like I'm supposed to trust anything thing you say to me now. And if this isn't an emergency, like you say it isn't, if this coliform bacteria is possibly even good for me as you seem to be implying then why are you sending out a fucking emergency notice?
It goes on to say:
"The EPA, the DC Department of Health, and the Washington Aqueduct say that the increase in bacteria is probably caused by the addition of orthophosphate – a chemical added to the water by the Aqueduct to help with the problem of lead leaching from service pipes and fixtures containing lead, and the warm summer weather."
AND NOW THERE'S FUCKING LEAD IN THE WATER TOO?! OH, GREAT! JUST FUCKING GREAT!
The pamphlet concludes:
"We have successfully provided as much early notice as possible to customers, the general public, the media and local and federal government officials."
This part is actually true. They did give me plenty of notice to do the NOTHING that they suggested. No “boil the water”, no “buy bottled water”, no NOTHING. Just an "FYI – you've been drinking bacteria laden water. Cheers!"
You'll have to excuse me now. I'm thirsty. I'd like to drink something with less bacteria than water. Luckily, I've got a nice, hot cup of urine waiting for me.
There is a veritable cornucopia of topics I could discuss here, but I decided to make this blog entry DC-centric as Arjewtino is a D-list weblebrity in the DC Blog circuit. So, here we go my droogies. Strap in and hang on.
A while back I got this pamphlet in the mail. It was kinda long and had lots of words. It didn't have any pictures or nothin'. The words were tiny, too. Reading it was gonna be work. But it might be important! What to do? After a bit of thought, I came up with an ingenious solution: I placed the pamphlet on my kitchen counter. “I'll read it later. It's probably not important,” I said to myself. Ingenious.
A while later, I eventually got around to reading it. Here's how it read:
“On September 23, tests showed an increase in coliform bacteria, resulting in a violation of a monthly federal drinking water standard – the first violation for DC WASA following 95 consecutive months of surpassing the standard.”
Ok.... so, I don't quite get what this means. I'm pretty sure that "Coliform bacteria" is bad for me. I mean, I'm not a fancy big city lawyer or nothin', but I've never heard a cereal commercial bragging, "Now with MORE Coliform bacteria!" Secondly, they violated a federal standard. And you know that "standard" wasn't that good to begin with. So here I am drinking water full of fucking bacteria, and I'm supposed to give these fucking douchebags a pat on the back because they haven't had a violation in the past 95 months? YOU ARE FUCKING NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE FUCKING BACTERIA IN THE FUCKING WATER THAT PEOPLE FUCKING DRINK.
The pamphlet continues:
“This is Not a Health Emergency!”
Yeah. That superfluous exclamation mark makes me reeeaally inclined to believe you. Like I'm supposed to trust anything thing you say to me now. And if this isn't an emergency, like you say it isn't, if this coliform bacteria is possibly even good for me as you seem to be implying then why are you sending out a fucking emergency notice?
It goes on to say:
"The EPA, the DC Department of Health, and the Washington Aqueduct say that the increase in bacteria is probably caused by the addition of orthophosphate – a chemical added to the water by the Aqueduct to help with the problem of lead leaching from service pipes and fixtures containing lead, and the warm summer weather."
AND NOW THERE'S FUCKING LEAD IN THE WATER TOO?! OH, GREAT! JUST FUCKING GREAT!
The pamphlet concludes:
"We have successfully provided as much early notice as possible to customers, the general public, the media and local and federal government officials."
This part is actually true. They did give me plenty of notice to do the NOTHING that they suggested. No “boil the water”, no “buy bottled water”, no NOTHING. Just an "FYI – you've been drinking bacteria laden water. Cheers!"
You'll have to excuse me now. I'm thirsty. I'd like to drink something with less bacteria than water. Luckily, I've got a nice, hot cup of urine waiting for me.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 4:05 PM.
