Aren’t we supposed to see through a glass of tap water?
This just in: a Free Lance Web poll this week showed that three
out of four respondents do not drink Hollister tap water.
What the poll didn’t ask: Do you chew Hollister tap water?
Most people have an opinion about our local water. Either they
hate it and would avoid it even if they came upon a faucet pouring
the stuff in the middle of the desert or they have lived here since
they were kids and brag about how they used to drink it straight
from the hose and
”
it never did me any harm.
”
Aren’t we supposed to see through a glass of tap water?
This just in: a Free Lance Web poll this week showed that three out of four respondents do not drink Hollister tap water.
What the poll didn’t ask: Do you chew Hollister tap water?
Most people have an opinion about our local water. Either they hate it and would avoid it even if they came upon a faucet pouring the stuff in the middle of the desert or they have lived here since they were kids and brag about how they used to drink it straight from the hose and “it never did me any harm.”
I’m actually on both sides of that issue. I will bathe in the stuff because I have no choice and I will water my lawn and wash my clothes with it, but I won’t drink it. But did I drink it straight out of the hose in my front yard as a kid? I sure did. Did it adversely affect me? Well, I am a little off, but I doubt my hose water consumption is the reason.
I wasn’t aware of or concerned about total dissolved solids in my water when I was 11. And we didn’t have bottled water in the house back then anyway, so that wasn’t an option. The hose water tasted like a garden hose, but it did its job of quenching my thirst during a break from playing baseball in the street.
As an adult, I’ve caught myself telling my sons not to drink from the hose as if they were about to take a swig of Windex.
In the house, like many Hollister residents do, we have plenty of bottled water on hand for all of our cooking and drinking needs. It’s kind of crazy, when I think about it, that I already pay for city-delivered water straight from the tap, yet I avoid it like it were vinegar.
Every now and then, when I’m feeling particularly adventurous or the bottled water dispenser is low, I’ll use tap water when boiling noodles for spaghetti.
It’s so quick and easy to open the tap and fill up the pot that way. Why don’t I just do that all the time?
The answer comes as the water starts to boil. A strange foam forms at the top of the pot, probably the result of the “dissolved solids” and various minerals that are in the municipal supply. I scrape that off and continue with the cooking, though the meal doesn’t taste just the way it should and I tell myself not to give in to the tap water temptation again.
The thing is, Discovery Channel shows always show outdoor adventurers roughing it in the wild by boiling tepid water over an open flame to make it potable. It stands to reason that the same process would work with tap water boiling on my kitchen stove. I have never been sickened by our water, which does meet whatever state or federal standards are required of municipal supplies. But it doesn’t meet my taste requirements.
I have no issue brushing my teeth with Hollister water or taking a shower in the stuff, because I’m not intentionally ingesting any of the stuff during those activities. I water my plants with it – they seem to respond well to the mineral-rich dissolved solids and I even fill my cat’s water dish with it if we don’t have a half-filled water bottle lying around that one of my sons didn’t finish.
I’m just not going to offer a glass of the stuff to a guest who asks for some water. Handing them bottled water is the norm.
My maternal grandmother lives in the Sierra foothills and has always been proud of the “mountain water” that comes out of her tap.
When I would visit her house as a child, one of the first things I would do is run to the kitchen sink and pour myself a glass of mountain water straight out of the tap. It was like visiting Willy Wonka’s factory and being able to drink from the river of chocolate.
“Grandma, why can I see right through this glass of water? Where are the dissolved solids?”
“How come I don’t have to chew after taking a sip?”
We make the drive up there with our bottles of water to keep us quenched and we always make sure to refill the bottles with mountain water before we head back down Hwy. 50. The pure, clean liquid gold makes the cost of fueling up the car for the trip worth it.
During the writing of this column, I finished nearly an entire bottle of Kirkland “premium drinking water (with minerals added for taste).” It was better than Hollister water (which would taste better if minerals were subtracted) but not as good as Grandma’s mountain water.
Alas, Hollister water is what it is. It’s wet, it doesn’t kill plants and when heated it works fine for a shower – though over time it clogs pipes and leaves a nasty film on anything it touches. And if you let a glass of it sit for a few minutes, you can almost see all the way through it.
To get more Breen Damage, check out Adam’s blog at http://thebreenblog.blogspot.com. Adam teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School and is a reporter for The Pinnacle. He is former editor of The Free Lance.
