#332 Keck

Americans have an oral fixation. In direct proportion to the number of people giving up smoking there’s been an increase in the purchase of water bottles. Used to be, back in the day, there was an occasional Perrier person out there, sipping his expensive water with pinkie extended. Then for a while, when the actors needed something called action, America came around to the notion that hey, if Seinfeld can do it, so can I. Action is something actors do. It means they have something to fiddle with during a dramatic or comedic pause. The fiddling increases the dramatic or comedic tension. I have bad news (fiddle with bottle) Uncle Lenny barfed at the bar mitzvah. Used to be, action was accomplished with a cigarette, either taking a drag and blowing it out, or lighting it, or offering to someone else to light. TVs cigarette rules changed all that and the water bottle got a media boost. Now they’re everywhere and every stripe and brand. They’re all pure, they’re all from some spring we’ve never heard of, and they’re all most likely from the same place in New Jersey. The purity of your bottled mountain fed spring water is not guaranteed by any government body. In fact, your local tap water has to pass more stringent purity tests. Plus, there’s the addition to the trash stream of all these empty water bottles. I know this sounds stupid but I almost think pop bottles are better, at least someone gets an empty calorie or two for their efforts. I can understand water bottles in places where the homegrown water is infested with fecal coliforms and arsenic and stuff. But here in the Northwest? I’ve had visitors from all over rushing to my tap every time they’re in my home just to drink up the delicious real live honest to goodness artesian spring water that comes out at the turn of a handle.
And plastic bottles are far from cheap to manufacture. It’ll get worse. Plastic is made from petroleum. And petroleum is going up. True, the plastic water bottles are getting flimsier and municipalities are collecting them for recycle. But didn’t we have a bottle that was ultimately recyclable. All you had to do was wash it out. They called it glass. It was made out of sand. Maybe when the Arabs run out of oil they can go into the glass business. Cause it doesn’t have in any chemical breakdown products. How many of today’s exotic allergies and ailments do you think come from plastic chemical breakdown products being ingested with each water bottle swig? Plastic breaks down. That’s why all the runners use Nalgene bottles and not the old fashioned soft plastic water bottles from back when. Smell the inside of an old plastic pull-out-the-spout-with-your-teeth water bottle sometime. If you can smell something, it means there are some chemical particles that just got into your nose. I’m guessing it’s not from a mountain spring.
America, ya gotta love it.