You Drink It Too

When I was little my teacher, who was by all accounts a staunch conservationist (otherwise known as a hippie), decided to inform us all at the ripe age of nine that the Earth has a limited supply of water. That the water we drink today has been the same water being recycled by Nature, over and over again since the beginning of the world.

Many of the other children could not seem to fathom this prospect. There was water in the toilet, water in the sink, water in the bath tub, water in our pools, and water constantly falling out of the sky. In fact, the state in which we lived was surrounded by water on three sides! How could it be a limited resource?

I too was kind of in disbelief even though I knew much more about the world than many of my peers at this age. My response initially was, "But the Earth has more water than land!" Not comprehending that he was referring to fresh water and that salt water didn't count. Once he clarified that, it made a lot more sense. To me anyway. The other kids still seemed thoroughly unconvinced and/or totally confused. That's when it dawned on me: if all of what we were being told was true, that meant that dinosaurs had PEED in our water!

Unable to contain this news, feeling it very important and something that all of my classmates should know before they continue blindly drinking dinosaur urine, I blurted it out. The class fell completely silent for several seconds before, in unison, thirty children screamed, "EW GROSS!" Our teacher stood at the head of class dumbfounded, totally incapable of reigning in our disgust. The look on his face hinted that perhaps this was something that he himself had never considered.

Just as we had all sworn never again to drink the vile liquid, he doomed us to a life of dino-pee, "You have to drink water or you will die." I'm sure that many parents filed complaints that day. Both because their children were now refusing to drink any water and because their nine year old children were suddenly questioning their mortality.

I'm not sure where I was headed with this, other than I was concerned about the planet's limited water supply for all of the wrong reasons.