1534 You're In

We have an ambivalent attitude about bodily wastes. We use animal wastes quite freely. Quite obvious when you go to the nurseries and see bags of cow manure and steer manure. I've always wondered—how do they tell the difference? Do they sort it after or just make sure cows and steers use separate facilities.
Likewise urine. For years it's had many uses, from curing leather to polishing gold braid on uniforms. But we still maintain a respectful distance from it.
So it was the other day when I went in for a physical. The lab asked that I stop by the day before for a specimen cup. They also gave me a plastic bag for holding the cup. The next morning I noticed the bag had a space checked on it. The checkmark was next to the word "refrigerate."
But for some reason I didn't think an appropriate place for the specimen in question was the refrigerator. The only letter of the alphabet I want iced is T.
But I also thought I was being a little too squeamish.
Then I read a news item the other day. Apparently some drunken individual urinated in a Portland water reservoir. So authorities emptied all 7.8 million gallons of it.
What a waste. Really? There's probably more animal and fish pee, not to mention over-flying bird poop, in that reservoir than one person's output could compete with. Especially if that one person's output was diluted with 8 beers.
I'm no whiz at math but the parts per million on that have got to be below anyone's squeamish factor. Wait. What's the abbreviation for parts per million?
Oh yeah, PPM.
I get it. Or is that just if the guy did it at night?
America, ya gotta love it.