Devil In The Details

I am rushing to get this out because everything else I did today was done as purposefully slow as possible. Surprisingly, I got about as much done as I usually do. I don't know how that's possible, but here I am. I'm not going to lie to you though - the other reason I'm burping this out so late in the day is that for the first time, I really am not sure what to say. I didn't add any new water-saving trick to my repertoire, nor did I look up any gloomy new facts about the future of clean water. Hey, I'm an American enjoying a three day weekend! Lay off, doomsday! Like, I want to watch my kid run through a sprinkler, okay?!?!

Yet, I have made a mental note worth writing. In the short time that I have put my mind to this, I've noticed a distinct change in the way I'm thinking. And when I do something absentmindedly, like pour my leftover drinking water down the drain, I kick myself. I want to do better. I want this to count for something. I don't know if it ever will in the grand scheme, but if I know that I could have flushed the toilet fewer times during the day, then I want to make sure that I don't pass that limit. It means something to me.

I remember when I was living in New York, my roommates and I had a running joke that simply walking out the door was $20. It was true. There was always something. Even if you were going to the store to get a bottle of water, somehow, we'd return broke. My attempt at water conservation is totally reminiscent of those days in my twenties when I would eat baked potatoes and ice cream for dinner to save money, but then find myself dolling out a couple of hundred dollars after stepping on someone's eyeglasses or some stupid thing like that. It's the same thing with this effort to save water. Today, I poured some water back and forth between two bowls in the sink so that I didn't have to run the faucet to rinse them. But then when it came time to do laundry, I spilled gobs of laundry detergent on my quarters and had to use God-knows-how-much water to rinse them off because there was no plug in the basin in the laundry room. Well, crap! What the hell?

I finally think I know where this entry is going (please understand that I am wading through delirium in order to figure this out). I recently came across a water usage "calculator." (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sq3.html) I keep telling myself that I am going to wait to use it because I want to get it down to as little as possible. But I don't think there will come a day when I don't feel like I have used too much water, or that I haven't wasted water at some point. I mean, soapy quarters? Who would have seen that coming?

So, I think at this point, I just have to do it and see what the verdict is. Hey, it's going to be tough to look at the number of gallons of water I use, but perhaps it will motivate me even more to conserve water. So tomorrow, I'm going to calculate. Well, maybe I'll wait until Tuesday. Hello??? Three day weekend!!!