I must have been at the peak of boredom (if boredom can even
have peaks… was I at the valley of boredom?) a few months ago, because I
actually read my water bill. Normally, I look at the dollar amount, gauge its
reasonableness with a highly complex and intricate formula that mostly involves
the question, “Does that sound right?”, and then I pay it.
For some reason, I actually read the charts and graphs on
the August/September bill and was amazed to find out that we used an average of
772 gallons per day.
ALMOST 800 GALLONS A DAY?
That seems excessive, to say the least. How is that even
possible? That’s probably like nine or ten Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth,
or, to put it in more understandable suburban terms, about seven billion 16-ounce
Starbucks travel mugs.
Back in August and September, we Californians had no idea we
were in for the driest winter we’ve had since the dawn of time, so I was
watering my lawns dutifully, to keep up the ridiculous social convention of
green grass being more attractive than brown dirt.
I stopped watering my lawn around the end of September, unwittingly
ending up on the cutting edge of the self-righteous, drought-conscious Northern
California homeowner scene. Now in February, after we have received roughly 0.0
inches of rain in December and January, I can point to my dying, brown,
lawn-like substance with pride and say I cared about the environment and our
precious natural resources long before you people with green lawns did. The
truth is, I really stopped watering because I don’t like mowing. I just sort of
stumbled into this whole self-righteous thing.
Curious about our water usage without all the annoying lawn
care, I checked the December/January bill and I was shocked. We used an average
of 292 gallons per day, which seemed a little high still, but what I was
shocked to see was that the dollar amount of the new bill was only 36% less
than the old one even though we cut our water usage by 62%.
How does that work, Placer County Water Agency? If I did my
math correctly, based on your billing logic, if we stopped using water
altogether you would still want $47 from us.
We have three young boys, all of whom play sports and wear clothes to school, and my wife
owns nearly a third of all the clothes in North America, so our washing machine
has basically been running continuously for nine years now. That makes the 300
gallons per day number a little more believable, but it still seemed high to
me. Until last night.
I had just put the kids to bed and my wife was out of the
house - wearing the third or fourth outfit of the day - so I was firmly planted
on the couch in front of the TV, no doubt watching some manly show about
wrestling alligators or blowing things up. The boys’ bathroom sits upstairs above
the living room, and when the toilet flushes, it sounds like a medium-sized waterfall
in the wall behind the TV.
When I heard what was probably the fourth flush in as many
minutes, I started to pay attention. When I heard the estimated ninth flush, I
began counting. Knowing which one of our children it was – I will not divulge
the culprit’s identity here, to spare him from any future horrific embarrassment
should his senior prom date happen upon this column - I decided not to
intervene, even though nine flushes is obviously overkill for any bodily
function a kid can produce. I was treating it more as an experiment than
anything, mostly out of curiosity at just how many times one boy felt it
necessary to flush, but also because I really didn’t want to drag my lazy butt
off the couch.
At flush number twenty-four I got off the couch. He was up
to twenty-six when I made it up the stairs. I’m not making this up. (Neither
the flush count, nor the fact that I’m so old it took me two flushes to get up
the stairs.)
I politely inquired as to what he was doing.
“Pooping.”
“Yes, I can see that. Why are you flushing so much?”
“I don’t want to clog the toilet.”
Hmm… While I appreciated his motives, I didn’t really know
which subject to tackle first – The fact that the wipe/flush/wipe/flush/wipe/flush
method, while effective in preventing toilet clogs, is not the most economical
or conservative approach; or the fact that if you have to wipe twenty-seven times, you might want to improve your overall
technique.
Like so much of my really good parenting advice, I decided
to put it off until later.
“OK, well, we obviously need to have a talk about pooping,
but let’s do it tomorrow, OK?”
“OK dad. Goodnight”
“Goodnight, son.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
“I like to have a clean butt.”
“We all do, buddy. Goodnight”
I walked back downstairs shaking my head. At least now I
know how we manage to use 300 gallons of water a day. My son just accounted for
half of it.
As summer approaches in the great parched state of
California, we’re definitely going to need to work on more drought-friendly
wiping methods around here. Not only will that help everyone water-wise, but it
should also help our toilet paper budget tremendously.
Running out of water is one thing, but if my boys keep going
the way they are now with the toilet paper, we might be forced to re-purpose
that water bill, if you know what I mean.
Ouch.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen
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