Porcelain Springs

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“Hey, don’t drink that,” my friend said as I filled a glass from the kitchen tap. “Our water is disgusting. Here, you can have this,” she said as she handed me a bottle of Evian from the fridge.

Everyone in LA thinks their drinking water is disgusting. No matter where they live. They bathe in it, wash their hair in it, brush their teeth in it, just don’t drink it.

So they go crazy to get clean water. They’ll pay $10,000 a month to have a guy bring giant bottles of water. Then they almost get killed turning it upside down on the dispenser. Then they try to limit the consumption of their expensive water by providing tiny paper “shot” glasses.

Dogs aren’t so fussy. My friend’s dog likes to walk into her bathroom and take a drink out of the toilet. You can hear him in there for 25 minutes. He loves it. He prefers it! I think they should come out with a dog’s water dish that is a replica of a toilet bowl.

In LA restaurants, if you ask for water, they assume you don’t mean from the tap:

“I’ll just have water,” I’ll say.

“Would you like mineral or sparkling?”

“Mineral is fine.”

“We have Crystal Springs, Sparkling Springs, Hawaiian Springs, Rusty Springs, Springtime in Paris, Spring in My Step, Spring Me From The Big House, …”

“Uh, Diet Coke”.

If you insist on regular tap water you have to sign a medical release form and get two tetanus shots from the waiter.

Water conservation is a way of life in LA. It has to be because the city is built on a desert and there is never enough water. Public education on conservation is working – although the city has grown by 1,000,000 people since the 1970’s, the level of water use has remained the same. From the smell of things, it seems like this has been largely achieved by many residents cutting out bathing completely.

The city has many tips to help conserve water:

• Water your lawn only when it needs it.

Once when I was staying at my uncle’s house, the sprinklers came on and they never went off. I punched a bunch of numbers in to the computer that controlled them but nothing happened. The sprinklers ran all day. A small river ran down the driveway and into the street. Neighbor kids were seen floating in inner tubes down the gutters. Every hour a neighbor across the street stood on her porch and yelled, “Turn the damn sprinklers off!” I came back to LA before he got his water bill.

• Shorten showers. A minute reduction can save hundreds of gallons per month.

My dad would have liked this tip. When I was taking showers he would walk by the bathroom and pound on the door. “Come on, hurry up. In and out of the shower like a Marine!” I never had a chance to take a full rinse. I walked around with shampoo in my eyes for the first eighteen years of my life. It wasn’t until I moved out and got a full rinse that I realized I had two little sisters.

• Drive your car onto the lawn to wash it- the rinse water helps the lawn and nearby shrubs.

I can’t say I’ve ever done this. If my dad ever came home to find me washing my car on the lawn, I would have needed several gallons of water to wash the blood off my body.