You don’t know how precious things are until they’re gone

First Precious Thing Gone: Water

If you drive by my local Wal-Mart right now, you might wonder what movie star is in there signing autographs. Or you might be tempted to check your calendar and make sure it isn’t Black Friday or the day after Halloween when all the candy goes for half off. That’s because everyone and their pet hamster are either arriving there or leaving there or waiting in a long, long line in there. Why? They are all loading up on bottled water. Because our city is telling everyone to not even bother with trying to boil your tap as they are currently trying to flush the system. Aaand … evidently boiling water doesn’t kill bacteria when you’re flushing a system?? I’m suspicious, but since I’m not a hydrologist or a toxicologist or a toxicologist hydrologist, I’ll shut up. The root of the problem is that salmonella is suspected to be in the water supply, and we aren’t supposed to drink it for at least a week. A WEEK! Our local hospital is teeming with mysterious cases of salmonella poisoning. Thankfully, it hasn’t affected me and mine. But a lot of good people are very sick right now in these parts.

“The teacher said we can’t drink it, shower in it, cook with it, brush our teeth with it...” In short, Toni’s teacher said we are to SHUN the water like it was Governor Spitzer.

“Well… I think that’s taking it a bit far. We can definitely shower with it,” I say to my daughter.

“Maybe YOU can. But I can’t.”

“Pray tell... Why can’t YOU shower?”

“Because I have a bad habit of showering with my mouth open.”

I refrained from being my usual smart-ass self who wholeheartedly wanted to say… “I guess making a conscientious effort to close your mouth is out of the question then.”

So I guess it’s baths and bottled water for Toni. Which reminds me… I just read a headline that Seattle is banning water bottles. Under normal circumstances, I’d be whooping and cheering for their progressiveness. Yay for environmentally-conscious cities!! Now I’m just praying that they never end up with bacteria in their wells and a city government saying don’t boil it, just buy it… because Lordy that would be a pickle!

Second and Most Precious Thing Gone: Suzie

My mother called to tell me last night that a girl from my hometown of Deming, New Mexico, has allegedly been murdered by her husband. I don’t have the words to describe how this news made me feel. She was a teacher, in her twenties, and the mother of a four-year-old from what I understand. I didn’t know Suzie on a personal level. Once upon a time I took an aerobics class that her mother taught. I went to school with her older brother. I ranked her smile up there in the top ten best smiles God ever created. I remember seeing her at family barbecues, running around the ball fields in the summer, sitting with her family at church… But I didn’t KNOW her. I didn’t know her favorite color, or her best friend’s name, or what she did for New Year’s Eve last year. But somebody out there does… my former aerobics instructor, the boy I went to school with, her father, her younger sister… so I write this for them… to say, I’m so very, very sorry. Please accept my deepest, heartfelt condolences.