My Tap Water Terrifies Me

To shoot a dead horse, I don't have cable. So I find myself reading the newspaper in the morning, because unlike my cable, the cranky bastard that I bought my apartment from didn't cancel his subscription when he moved. It's really a blessing and a curse because those things pile up like weeds and now I have pieces of newspapers all over my house-- which is certainly not helping me with my clutter problem. But that is a whole other blog.

I was reading my free newspaper on Friday morning, and I stumbled upon a very troubling article. It was entitled, "Drugs Found In More Cities' Water Systems". The article explained that after extensive testing of water in many, many cities, Denver and Colorado Springs' water tested positive for things like methadone, testosterone, doxycycline, and erythromycin (to only name a few). It explained that trace amounts of antibiotics, hormones, anti-depressants, and other drugs are slipping through the waste water purification process.

The reasons that this article ruined my water for me was two-fold. First of all, I don't care what anyone says-- it doesn't seem logical that constantly drinking hormones and antibiotics in trace amounts is harmless. It must have a long term effect...Like maybe the ineffectiveness of antibiotics? I don't know. All I know is that I am not a heroin addict, and I don't really want a steady treatment of methodone.

Secondly, it reminded me that there is poop in the water. I mean, not literally, but I was sitting there staring at my untouched glass of water thinking, "this used to be sewage." MY G-D, EW. EW, EW, EW. I understand that this has always been the case. I am aware that it is all filtered out and all, but if anything makes it through (like trace amounts of drugs), then what else is making it through? I get that it isn't harmful. But benign poop water is still not really ok with me. And now, I can't drink it. I am walking around all dehydrated- definitely not getting my 8 glasses that's for sure. Even as I write this I am thirsty. I can't even go to bottled water because most of the time, it is just bottled from some other cities' water. You know what it is? It's like the toilet. I don't want to know what happens after I flush it. I want to be blissfully ignorant. Damn the newspaper. Damn it.