Saturday, March 8, 2008

Water Water Everywhere

Mathews is all about water: waterfront property, easy access to deep water, lots of opportunities for water sports, easy living on the water. But it sure as heck ain't about drinking water.

For reasons that are not clear to me, the drinking water here is lethal. DEADLY. People say that many moons ago a meteor hit the Chesapeake Bay area and landed here. This meteor contained (insert technical term of your choice here because I have no idea what I'm talking about), which contaminated our water supply.

With no access to "city water," everyone is on a well. Evidently the water source for these wells is HADES. Our well water tends to stink, it tastes even worse than it smells, it has the power to turn white laundry orange, and we all live in mortal fear of ingesting any of it. Mortal fear. FOR GOD'S SAKE DO NOT DRINK THE WATER! we often tell our out-of-town guests.

So what do we do for drinking water? We drive to the end of our lane, walk into A DITCH and fill our drinking jugs. With so-called "spring water." Out of a ditch. We've been doing this for over a year now, ever since my father discovered this fountain of youth bubbling on his property.

The fact that we'd rather drink out of a ditch (slap whatever label you want on that "spring", we're standing in a DITCH when we retrieve our water) is disturbing, I agree. But reserve judgment until after you've seen what comes out of our taps.

I am pleased to report that we do not have to use outhouses. Anymore.

1 comment:

Occasional Kate said...

When I was a little kid (mid 80s) my mom would mow the lawn for a lady around the corner, Miss Pansy. Miss Pansy had an outhouse in her backyard because she didn't have a bathroom in her house. She had a kitchen sink with a pump, but that was the extent of her plumbing. And I remember the water... and the water softener, and the rock salt... and what happened when you didn't remember to get rock salt! LOL