Rant Mode: Water, On The Rocks, With A Twist

Yup.

There is a water bar. A water bar. As in, they serve - you guessed it - water. Such a business actually does exist.

WTF?

Whose idea of a night out, honestly, involves sitting around and drinking water? Do people actually believe they can taste the difference between over 65 brands of bottled water, some of which go for upwards of $55 per bottle?

Now, I know you're probably expecting me to call the place a ripoff, or a scam. However, I refuse to do so - it's actually quite a brilliant business model. There are idiots everywhere, and this business has not only recognized that fact; they have managed to successfully develop a niche, and foster a new trend, within that most desirable market segment: the moron.

I mean, how the guy who spends $55 on a f**king bottle of water even manages to live his life with some measure of success is beyond me. Probably the same guy who coughed up the extra five-and-a-half grand to get a Saturn Sky, even though it is the exact same car as the Pontiac Solstice.

Point is, there is no one standing at the glacier catching the water in each individual bottle as it drips from the ice. There is no magical band of elves hanging around some mountain spring, filling bottles while singing a merry little tune. But the label gets 'em, every time, with that straight-from-the-fairy-tales fantasy of some noble kingdom of lilies and gold up in the mountains, the last vestige of pure water in all the land.

Truth is, the bottled water industry is the biggest crock known to mankind; it's a greater deception than Edison ever managed to pull (newsflash: those inventions weren't exactly his, he just took the credit). So let me ask you, how do you know where it really came from?

But it's been filtered, you say. Great. And purified, too, before going into the bottle. Right on, bro.

Still, I must ask:

What type of filtration was used, exactly? How was the water purified? Minerals? Which ones? Which mountain stream did the water come from? The one with the copper mine upriver? Or the one whose mouth is an aluminum tap? And doesn't the plastic bottle effectively defeat the purpose of the filtration? Doesn't that sh*t leech into - and poison - the water?

Now, I'm not knocking bottled water altogether. Yeah, it serves its purpose on long car or camping trips, and during rock concerts where you can't bring in your own because the stadium is getting a cut of all the concessions. Fair enough.

What I am knocking is the idiot who insists on drinking nothing but bottled water, because tap water has too many chemicals. Truth be told, most tap water is actually quite harmless. The chlorine content (which kills pretty much all harmful bacteria) may not conform to everyone's palette, but a decent filtration system in the home solves that issue, too.

In fact, a simple under-the-sink Reverse Osmosis unit with a carbon filter will strip out virtually everything, giving basically as pure a water as you can get. In other words, the same water you pay $2+ per bottle for, can be yours for a one-time investment of $400-$1000, which pays for itself in under a year in bottled water savings alone, without the added bonus of the poison plastic.

(To counter the poison plastic issue, some manufacturers are introducing glass bottles. Less of a health issue, and a great excuse to jack the price another 5 bucks for a product which is free in the customer's own home.)

But some people just want to be eclectic. They want to be hip. They must be a part of the latest trend. (Man, TV really has made us an insecure bunch, hasn't it?) So off to the water bar they go, spending more money in an evening than they would at a regular bar, in order to taste water, pretending to be high class, staying completely sober, and having to pee a lot.

Gee, sounds like a great time, fellas!

Spend for the trend, man. Spend for the trend. Be hip, be boss, all that. Me? I'm cool with the tap. I know my filtration system; I know exactly what I'm getting. That bottle could be filled with the spit of the factory workers -- how the hell would you know? Could you?

And six glasses a day? That's gotta be tough to keep up at a minimum $2 a pop. That's roughly $360/month you're spending on water, if you're keeping to current health standards (because you only drink bottled water for the health aspects, not because the TV told you so, right?). My last water bill, covering a bi-monthly billing cycle, was less than one-third of that.

And no, you don't "get what you pay for", when you pay more for a bottle of water. The price point doesn't indicate higher quality, it indicates that you are a dumbass.

Wait, scratch that.

Come to think of it, you are getting what you paid for: ripped off.

So enjoy your 500mL of [insert nature and deity metaphors here] water, folks, be it the two-buck variety or the fifty-five. Rest assured, I'll be enjoying the same ... for about 4 cents.

As for the water bar, well, I think they have taught us all a valuable lesson:

We're in the wrong business, folks.