Thursday, June 19, 2008

Don't Drink the Water

An update on the saga of Flood '08 -- The Boil Order:

Today, I went out to lunch with a good friend of mine to Applebee's. We were seated and given packets of plastic silverware. Our choices for drinks were bottled water ($2 for a bottle of water that came from the Hy-Vee across the street!) or Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, or Sierra Mist from a 2-liter bottle (which they brought to the table to give refills) poured into plastic Solo cups. When our food came, my soup was in a styrofoam cup.

Here was my thought: how many pounds and pounds of extra trash is being loaded into our landfills over the course of these past few days and the day or so that is left on this boil order? (The rumor is that the plant where our water comes from is up and running and the boil order should be lifted tomorrow about noon once they finish all the flushing and tests and things) So on top of the economic impact (they pointed out today on CNN that the corn lost in this flood could even affect the cost of something like a bottle of Gatorade, which uses corn sweetener), now there's even more environmental impact. Had I known I'd be eating with plastic from styrofoam, I probably would have rescheduled this lunch until the flood drama was over -- if only to keep a little less trash from trashing our environment.

5 comments:

Peter Von Brown said...

There sounds like a play is boiling in here along with the water!

Danielle Filas said...

And just when you thought Applebees couldn't make itself seem any cheaper....
I mean, did they have to refill at the table? Were they trying to show you that they weren't secretly giving you "not-contaminated-but-still-not-
exactly-potable" water? They should have left the 2 liters on the table in a wine bucket with ice. Like a classy joint.

Mel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mel said...

Okay, the comment deleted is mine. No big mystery. I just wanted to add something to what I had already said.

To Peter, I said this: "Actually, this whole thing has been making me think about Chinatown a lot lately -- the movie, not the place although the place is lovely and Chinese food DOES sound tasty right now. Anyway, you know that the MacGuffin in Chinatown is all about water rights and who gets the water and right about now my nose is twitching and I feel like Jack Nicholson and get all roiled up and then stop and think to myself, 'Forget it, Mel. It's Chinaatown."

Danielle -- HA!!! I think our jaws would have hit the floor if they had done that. I'm still annoyed by the $2 for Hy-Vee bottled water. I have a case of that stuff in my fridge and I know for a fact that a case of 24 bottles costs MAYBE $5. They are making a HUGE profit on this whole thing. $2 for the water, $2 for the soda . . . ridiculous. But damn, their tomato basil soup is tasty!

dbz said...

Dude, if I were Applebee's dishwasher (and thank God I am not!), I would be psyched

Woo Hoo, I'm on vacation ... I'm going someplace with water so I can wash some dishes!