Driving Miss Faucet

It's the dry season in Florida. You can tell by the crunchy brown grass by the roadside. Last weekend old friends from out of town came to spend the evening. We had a lot of catching up to do, everything from kids to jobs, from cars to websites. So the conversation went on and on. Together we prepared dinner, ate it and cleaned up afterward, yakking all the while. The companionship was great, except for one thing --the running water.

It amazed me how they didn't seem to notice it. From the rinsing of the strawberries to the loading of the dishwasher, my friend, who was the faucet operator, was driving without any knowledge of how to use the brakes and turn it off. Turning it on he could do, but then it stayed on and on and on. Soon I was hyperventilating over how long the water had been running, but I was trying not to let it show. I dealt with it by casually spinning past the sink in a pirouette of merriment and flicking the faucet handle down.

Odd as it seems, I flashed back to literature class and what I learned about the "coming of age" story. Remember? That's when the main character crosses a threshold from innocence to awareness. I can only say that while I was bustling in the kitchen with my friends, I was painfully aware that I had come of age, and they had not.

Several years ago, my participation in a water symposium played a large part in my loss of innocence, which was really a loss of ignorance. A couple of key statistics pricked my conscience and hung on like sandspurs on my sock.


- A faucet dripping at one drop per second will waste 2700 gallons per year.
- The average American uses 60 - 70 gallons of water indoors per day.
- Six to 10 gallons of water from the shower goes down the drain per minute.

Along with that I picked up this sound byte which has been ringing in my head. "It's not that there is no water, it's that we're wasting the good water we have." To emphasize the point, frequent references to "abusers" brought into focus the stigma of being a water waster. "Abuser" is about as creepy a label as you can get. I don't want it.

Over the last 3 or 4 years I have improved my water habits. At first, I went down the list of water saving tips" and picked those that were most painless, like turning off the water when I brush my teeth. Installing low flow fixtures and aerators on the faucets was another. I don't waste water flushing bugs down the toilet.

Like the revelation with my friends, we first must become conscious of water wasting then we can devise our own ideas for reducing it.

One website tip said to save the water from my shower and use it to water plants. I'm considering that, but I think perhaps this tip is meant for showers that run into the bathtub. For a tiled shower such as ours, the only idea I've come up with is to place a huge trash can under the shower and then climb into it. Please let me know if you've got a better idea before it's too late --and for heaven sake, turn off the faucet!