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Bottled water is is considered chic these days. |
SOME OF OUR more thrifty
We do it by choice, too, when most of us can have all the H2 O we want pretty much free from our taps.
Are we nuts?
I mean, is it crazy to pay for some- thing you can get for free? And it's so easy to do by just turning a knob.
That's a tough question.
Not.
Now, how much would you pay for a hamburger? About two weeks ago, the Old Homestead Steakhouse at the Boca Raton Resort & Club down in Florida began offering a new 20-ounce burger on its menu that is 5 inches across, 2 inches thick and made from American prime beef, Japanese Kobe and blended a bit more with some Argentine cattle product.
Before you think of the cost of this latest artery-clogger, you should know that membership in the Boca Raton Resort & Club costs a cool $40,000. Dues are another $3,600 per year.
Only some real heavy-hitters with fat wallets and loaded purses are going to be inside this place dabbing the ketchup stains off their ties or blouses with the fine linen.
OK, you ready? With tax and tip, this new hamburger will set you back $124.50. A person can buy an awful lot of Whopper meals or Big Macs for $124.50.
That's just outrageous.
Then there is Paul Dalton's "Miracle Detail" business up and running now in merry ol' England. Dalton gives the family chariots of his clients--most of whom are from London and its suburbs--his best wash and wax job for only $9,000 apiece, if you paid in U.S. currency.
Nine thousand dollars!
Of course, that comes with citrus-juice degreasing. And it goes without saying that Dalton uses only filtered water.
But my goodness, $9,000 for a wash and wax?
He also recommends you have this service done to your brand-new cars.
Right.
I'll bet Dalton can afford to drink any kind of bottled water he wants.
Now, most rational folks aren't going to fork over anything near $100 for a single hamburger--and we sure won't be taking Mr. Dalton up on his offer--but so many of us do buy these bottled water products today.
Why is that?
Is it just cool and trendy to walk around with a container of Perrier or Fiji natural artesian water in our hands?
It makes me wonder, for maybe 35 or 40 years ago it was thought by many to be stylish and chic to have a Camel or Marlboro dangling from your lips. Today, smokers are venerated in our society about as much as lepers and child molesters.
Will the same thing happen to bottled-water drinkers by the year 2050?
Maybe these products are so popular today because people believe they are purer and better for you in some way than plain old tap water.
But that's not true, you know. It might be if you were living in the slums of Mexico City or some remote village along the Amazon River in Brazil, but not anywhere around here.
City water from any municipal source in the United States, by FDA rules, is required to be disinfected, tested for viruses and E. coli bacteria, plus have any pathogens filtered out.
None of that is required for bottled water.
The simple fact is that bottled water is no cleaner or safer than water you get out of most taps.
Think of that the next time you have a big swallow of that Glaceau Smart Water from the big 25-ounce bottle.
Here's something else you may not know: Bottled water advertised as "spring water" can be pumped from the ground and treated with chemicals.
Now in fairness, maybe the bottled stuff actually does taste a lot better.
In a scientific effort to find out, I had my staff (that's my wife) buy us a few waters. Then I had the entire staff and management (that's her and me) taste them.
She did her tasting not knowing what was in each of the identical cups I handed her. I made up five little servings of water.
Here are my bride's comments:
Cup 1: "That's tap water." (It was Dasani.)
Cup 2: "OK." (That was tap water.)
Cup 3: "Good." (This was Aqua-fina.)
Cup 4: "Best." (It was CVS brand Natural Spring Water.)
Cup 5: "That's the Dasani." (Tap water again.)
"Was there a lot of difference between them?" I asked her.
"Not really," was her reply.
I then sampled them, and did try to keep an open mind.
They all tasted pretty much like water to me.
Yes, there were some differences, but they were so subtle it was really hard for me to pick one as any better or worse than the rest.
Now consider, it's about $1.29 for a single serving of these bottled waters versus nearly free when it comes out of our tap. We're on our own well and septic here in Louisa County, and I think the well is about 250 feet deep. It came along with the house when we purchased here about nine years ago.
It's certainly not totally free, not if you factor the cost of the well into our home's purchase price. But it sure has to be a lot cheaper to flick open the tap for a few seconds than it is to cough up $1.29 for 16 fluid ounces of water bottled by Coca-Cola, CVS or Pepsi.
Keep in mind, our homes and pretty much everything around and in them continue to appreciate every year.
You can only ever get a nickel for an empty Dasani or Aquafina bottle, and you'll have to go to Maine or Hawaii to collect it.
So I say, save your money for one of those $100-plus hamburgers. I hear they're actually pretty good.
JIM KUNDRESKAS of Louisa County near Lake Anna has been an outdoors writer
Email: Zbasser@aol.com.
