Everyone knows THAT guy. You know the guy who spits his gum out of a moving car, regardless of where it may land. He’s the same guy who throws his empty beer cans into the gutters after crushing them on his head. He’s the same guy who dumps used motor oil into the sewers when he thinks no one is watching.
Well, that guy in my life was Luke. Luke and I were friends for quite a while, and while everything between us was excellent, he had the most disgusting habit. He would throw anything and everything into the gutter with a smirk and a “That’s where that goes.”
That was how Luke lived his life, “That’s where that goes.” Every cigarette butt, every candy wrapper, every paper coffee cup, thrown carelessly into the gutter, followed by a “That’s where that goes.” Well, one night, we were at a bar and it was raining. Luke and I were outside. Luke was smoking and as per usual, he tossed his cigarette carelessly away.
I watched as his butt landed in the river of rainwater and was swept along into the gutter, where it vanished. Luke looked at me and said “That’s where that goes.” And I don’t know if it was the booze that created my sudden intolerance of his behavior or if it was the rain, but I turned to Luke and explained where the sewer leads. It leads to our water supply. What we drink, cook with, shower in. It’s all the same water. He looked at me like I was nuts… “Water goes into the sewer and is treated at some plant and it’s purified or filtered or whatever. We’re not drinking sewer water.”
That was where Luke was wrong. In fact the sewer water is the same water we drink fresh from the tap. I know. It’s gross and icky and scary. And it’s not just filled with mountains of Luke’s used cigarette butts, coffee cups, and candy wrappers, but it is in fact filled with our entire city’s trash. Everything that is flushed, tossed or dumped finds it way into our water supply.
And even with the most stringent of filtration rules, the job is just not getting completely done…
