The Truth About Bottled Water

Just as I was adjusting to life with bottled nothingness water, something crazy happened to piss me off even more.

During one of the healer's lectures I attended, I learned that he considers water to be the primary cause of cancer in America - even before smoking. Imagine that, the number one cause.

I pondered how that could possibly be the case in a post-Erin Brockovich world. Didn’t we all see that flick and immediately discontinue tap water use? Some of us in favor of diet soda?

Apparently we did. But that only compounded the problem.

What the healer explained that night is exactly what was confirmed in the news months after he said it - companies were bottling minimally purified junk (with more contaminants than our somewhat regulated tap water) and passing it off as clean.

We were duped, bigtime. Seriously, it's amazing that we don't give more money to the Nigerians.

On the bright side, the revelation about water made me more optimistic that the solution lay in Diet Coke. I suggested this possibility to the healer via e-mail, but received no response.

During my next visit, however, he suggested a few options (unfortunately, all still related to water). First, a home countertop water filter that costs about $300.00. Or a deluxe under counter water filtration system that costs about $700.00.

When I chuckled at these two options, he conceded that, if I had to drink bottled water, I could have real purified spring water from an artesian aquifer. Unfamiliar with the word "aquifer," however, I demanded that he name brands.

So he did - Fiji, Costco and Whole Foods water, to name a few.

I was dumbfounded by this response.

Now Fiji water is expensive, but Whole Foods water is some of the cheapest around. I was dying to know what ingenious marketing tactics had caused him to come up with this arbitrary ranking.

“I tested them on people,” he said.

Oh yeah.

I forgot who I was dealing with.

Back in the Dating Game - Bottled Water

In an effort to wean myself off the diet soda, I started drinking more bottled water. Obviously, it’s a grossly deficient substitute, but I had no choice.

I decided on the bottled variety when the healer’s staff warned me about the heavy metals, chemicals and assorted crap that gets into our tap water (from, among other contributors, dry cleaners). And apparently those water filter pitchers that you can buy for about $35.00 aren’t doing the trick either. Even high end refrigerator water filters, although better, are not the best to use (especially when, like me, you never changed the filter because you didn’t know it was in there).

Since water is tasteless and not one of the vices that adds pleasure to my life, I didn’t want it to be adding any junk to my body. So I decided that bottled water was the way to go.

I’m sure you know this, but drinking bottled water is a serious pain in the ass - much harder than drinking soda straight out of the two-liter. It’s heavy to load in and out of the shopping cart, car and refrigerator, and the recycling involved is equally cumbersome.

But I suffered through, knowing thinking that I was improving my health.

Wrong again.

Black Magic Takes on the Flu

The healer hates it when I call it black magic, but I can't help it sometimes. The quirky and awesome way in which alternative medicine cures ailments is straight out of a Harry Potter book.

For example, recently I acquired the flu. But I didn't know it at the time because - for once - I wasn't experiencing any of the traditional symptoms. I learned about my fate when the healer picked up on it during one of our regular sessions.

"You have a virus," he said.
"No I don't. I feel fine."

He laughed at my self-diagnosis.

"Yeah, you do. It's the flu. Take this bottle of drops and put three under your tongue at night for three nights, starting tonight."

I rolled my eyes and lied said I would.

Two days later, while the bottle of drops was still rolling around underneath the passenger seat of my car, I was flatlined with muscle aches and a sore throat. By the time I summoned the energy to go to the garage, I was dizzy, congested and pissed.

As I bit into the package and began counting the drops, I giggled at the notion that three of them could "cure" me. "God, I must be desperate," I thought.

But I woke up the next morning and everything was gone. Everything. As if nothing had happened. I felt like a million bucks.

After that, I renamed the healer "Merlin."