Waterworks of Doom
| Published 11/12/04

Graphic by: Ande Hearn

Many of you have probably already heard of the impending doom brought about by our local waterworks. They believe that for a while now, there has been a chemical in our water that has been known to cause cancer, and we thought Mexican water was bad. If I had a choice between Montezuma's revenge and chemotherapy, then to the toilet I shall go.

They're calling the culprit Haloacetic acid (HAA5), which is apparently what you get when you mix disinfectants with "materials" that occur in nature. I can tell they've got their best men working on this one, all the top scientists. Hey, at least we know it's from nature and not some alien spores taking us over from the inside. There's always a silver lining I suppose, but let's try to get a bit more specific.

Ambiguity and conspiracy theories aside, there's something in the water that shouldn't be there. You're probably wondering, "How does this affect me?" Well, I won't claim to be a scientist or to have seriously researched the topic, but I did do a Google search. Apparently in animals tests of HAA5, the brain, eyes, and testes are the ones who suffer. You can have the brain and eyes, but when the drinking water has threatened the livelihood of my cohónes, then its war. So the boys and I are now on a mission to find out exactly what this menace to society is all about.

 Since the memo from the waterworks was so terribly vague about the cause, effects, or treatment of the problem, I've decided to give you the straight facts (or B.S) about what's really going on with the H2O around here.

1: Nature has finally decided to fight back. After years of oppression and destruction of our natural resources, and the re-election of George W. Bush, Mother Nature is finally ready to kick ass. She's tired of us messing with her good clean water. So the next time you put anything in your water, whether its disinfectant or Kool-Aid, HAA5 will just pop up out of nowhere, poke out your eyes, eat your brain, and rip your nuts off.

2: Many large beer breweries have seen a decline in sales lately due to the increasing number of college students discovering the ills of alcohol. So in a last desperate attempt to regain their previous drinkers and perhaps a few more, the beer companies have paid off the waterworks to lower water quality in hopes that more people will turn to beer for their hydration pleasure. Hey, it worked in Tijuana.

Though these are both very likely scenarios, I encourage you out there to go make up some of your own. Tell people that it's a Communist plot to wipe out our democratic infrastructure or a mind control agent which forces all outsiders to unknowingly add the phrase "Y'all" to their vocabulary.

From the very eloquent memo I received from the local waterworks, apparently "This is not an immediate risk to consumers. If there had been an immediate risk you would have been advised accordingly. No consumer action is necessary at this time." Once again, my balls falling off happens to be an immediate risk, and even if it wont happen for many years, action is still needed. I have a strange feeling that I'm going to want to hang on to them for a while - call me crazy.

So, I encourage all of you out there to read up on our new friend Mr. HAA5, figure out what he's all about, invite him to your parties and embrace him, because I have a feeling he's going to be around for a while, y'all.