[Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, God's Chosen People were wandering through a desert, trying to find a promised land.
They got hungry, so God decided to help them out. Bread started falling from the sky.
It was fully cooked and ready-to-eat.
The Jews were happy.
The end.
But wait ... what if that wasn't the end?
What if this one Jew (let's just call him Dasani) took the free bread that had fallen from the sky and put it in a fancy jar?
Dasani would probably have called it purified bread, and offered it to the other Jews for a mere 2 camels. Would you buy it?
I know I would.
This (made-up) story reminds me of the bottled brilliance that we know and love today.
Although water falls from everything including the kitchen sink, in our ingenious society, bottled is better.
And rightfully so.
I was on the fence about bottled water until I read a January article in USA Today that confirmed everything I already knew.
First of all, bottled water is healthy.
The $43 billion that city governments spend on purifying tap water isn't enough to get all those ... cooties and ... other bad thingys ... out of it.
That's why I drink bottled.
Some ignorant folk in the article argued that more than 25 percent of bottled water, including Aquafina and our campus favorite, Dasani, actually comes from a tap.
They said that the amount of fossil fuels used to run the bottled water industry is estimated to be enough to run 3 million cars for a year.
Some were even dumb enough to say that 86 percent of used water bottles in the U.S. end up in landfills or on the side of the road.
All those "facts" just sound like a bunch of pessimism to me.
I mean, even if a quarter of bottled water is tap, the rest is purified mountain water and stuff, right?
So the way I see it, the bottle is almost 75 percent full!
As far as the environmental concerns, I say "environment, schmenschmiroment."
We have been virtually ignoring our ecological footprints for centuries.
Why change a long-standing tradition?
Besides, I'm sure if we ignore the problem long enough, it will get bored and go away.
And the whole landfill argument -- ridiculous! It's not the bottled water manufacturers' fault that nobody recycles.
Plus, there are probably lots of bums digging through the trash who find great uses for the bottles.
I'm not alone in my impeccable logic, either.
The article said that in our struggling economy, Americans spend $15 billion a year on bottled water.
This proves that perfect water is of utmost importance, since we pay more per gallon for a gallon of water than we do for a gallon of gasoline.
Obviously, paying 1000 times as much for bottled water than tap is the cool thing to do.
So whenever I see that water fountain on campus, I'll just march right past and to the nearest vender, where I can pay $1.39 for the same thing.
Why? Because I'm an American, and frivolous spending and environmental decimation are the American way.]
Also, for those of you unfamiliar with the word "sarcasm," take everything in the brackets and reverse it.
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