Delicious Filtered Water
It’s no secret that the water in Brooklyn tastes like crap. Especially when you live in an 80-year-old building like I do. Rust from ancient pipes, chlorine, pollution, stank, our water has it all.
Or does it? A lot of people will tell you that’s all just a myth. That the water from US taps is just as clean as what you get out of the Poland Spring bottle. That bad tap water is a lie propagated by water companies. Coke sells its own water. I think it’s called Dasani. Why sell soda when you can sell water for the same price and save yourself the trouble of adding carbonation and syrup? All you need for marketing is to play to a myth that everyone sort-of believes already.
Penn and Teller did a whole Bull$#!t episode about the water lie, and those guys are usually spot on.
But why take chances? When I first moved into my apartment, I bought one of those Brita filters, and never looked back. I drink a lot of water, so I always kept it full in the refrigerator. If I was making pasta or something, I’d use tap, but neither me nor my cat ever drank anything unfiltered.
When Dani moved in, she brought a filter with her. It was an ugly thing that attached directly to the kitchen tap and bolted onto the wall. It was hideous, and the filtered water came out in a slow trickle, but hey, it couldn’t hurt, right?
Sometimes I even filled the Brita with water from that filter. Super-ultra-double-filtration, baby!
But when we remodeled the kitchen, I decided that an ugly filter on the wall was a no-no, and the Brita was a waste. I insisted on one of those refrigerators that makes ice and gives water. I had to find a special one to fit through our narrow doorway, and it cost 50% more than a regular fridge, but I said “fuck it”. I’ve always wanted one of those, ever since I was a kid. Having your refigerator make all your ice and give you water? That’s how KINGS live.
So the fridge now had its own filtration system for the ice and water, but I still wasn’t satisfied. We were breaking the bank to remodel, so why not be bold? I had the contractors put a filter under the sink, too.
I was so excited, in a lame married loser homebody sort of way, when the contractor showed me the new filter. “This filter is for a whole house,” he said, “and lasts for three months. For you guys, you can leave it in for a year. There’s a little remote alarm you stick on your fridge, which will bling every three months to remind you, or to tell you if there’s a leak.” He turned the faucet on, and ZOW! Full force filtered water, biotch!
The fridge gives water pretty slow. I tired of that shit right away. I wouldn’t trade the icemaker for the world, but the water dispenser couldn’t compete with the new kitchen faucet.
I used that shit for EVERYTHING. Dishes? Wash ’em with filterd water for that extra shine. Pasta? Boil that shit in pure filtered water. Whether I was rinsing lettuce, giving the cat a drink, or washing an apple, it was crisp, clean filtered only from then on.
Oh, and Dani and I drank about 1,000 gallons of it. The filter was good for 15,000 gallons, so no worries. Dani said it didn’t taste any different than usual nasty NYC water, but I was like, “Bah, you have no subtlety in your taste.”
Every three months the little light blinked, and I reset it and ignored it. Two people don’t draw as much water from one faucet as a whole house does in 3 months.
It went off this week, though, and it’s been about a year, so I said WTF and opened up the filter to change the cartridge.
First piece of advice. It’s not enough to turn off the faucet. You should really turn off the water valve before working on your pipes. Any asshole knows that, right?
So, soaking wet, I open up the filter, and sure enough, the filter in the casing is soggy, nasty, and disintegrated. I dump it out, only to see that it’s not a filter at all.
It’s the instruction book for the filter.
There was never a filter in there. The contractors must have installed it assuming that it came with one inside. Dani and I have been filtering all our water over the last year through black ink and soggy, 60# uncoated, saddle-stitched text.
Delicious.
I’ve since installed a real filter. And sure enough, the water tastes noticably better. I wonder how long it will be before I can have a drink of water without feeling like an ass?
Maybe when I change the filter next year…