There Are No Carp Babies In The Tap Water

Since we haven’t heard boo from our agency, I am left to my own vices. Which lately, unfortunately, has meant a lot of television watching and lifeless sitting on the couch for me. I think I’ve made a permanent butt indent. I never used to watch this much TV…

Anyways, I saw an add the other day for a certain water filtration company - I won’t say the name directly, because Google and I have some qualms of how easily my blog comes up as a search result with the oddest searches. Well, I should say I have qualms, Google I am sure couldn’t care less. I realized my odd blog traffic when I signed up for a free ‘site tracker’ kind-of-thingy, which can tell me how people found my site. It is bizarre. So, anyway, let’s just say it starts with a ‘B’ and ends with a ‘rita’.

You may have seen it. It starts with a close-up of a beautiful flowing stream, and says something along the lines of ‘If this was your water, you wouldn’t need us’. Then it cuts to a congested four lane freeway, and the narrator states ‘but you live here.’ Umm… really? Are they seriously trying to tell me that my quality tested, EPA stamped tap water in a major metropolitan city (since they showed the congested freeway) is just too unsafe to consume? Hark, I better shell out more money to make my clean water cleaner!

I think the reason this bugs me so is there is an actual, very serious problem with unsafe drinking water throughout the world. A devastating one. For millions, a fatal one. But this is not the case necessarily here, in the US, where this commercial is being played. In making it seem like we have water quality issues, they are trivializing the millions who are in reality impacted daily dealing with the ramifications of unsanitary water. And that just plain bothers me.

Or, maybe I am just crabby. TV in general does bring out the worst in me, and my rear is sore from sitting so long, staring off into the glow. But, either way, it is still straight from the tap (but sometimes refrigerated) city water for me. And I have yet to catch dysentery.