Let the Faucet Drip

I lay awake at night as the temperature drops. With each drip of the faucet I feel hours of conservation go down the drain. It’s as if the granola me never happened. I’ve been erased.”

Attending university in Montana, a fellow dorm mate reamed me for leaving the faucet running while shaving. The horror! To my defense, I grew up in Texas and had never heard of concepts such as conservation and recycling. RE-cycling sounded like some old fogies’ biker club.

But the habit was easy enough to develop. I had learned how to turn the water on by my freshman year, how much harder could it be to turn it on and off a couple dozen times in quick succession while rinsing my razor? I even experimented (hey, it was college) with dipping my razor in standing water to test whether it used less water. (It turns out the water seeps around the drain plug.) Hell, I’ve become a “yellow, let it mellow” guy in the years since college (and not just in public restrooms).

But now that I’ve returned home to Texas, the recent cold snap has taught me to leave the water running. What gives? I’ve spent years developing a dish washing technique to use half the water of a machine (even on a water-miser setting!). I installed low flow toilets, shower twice a week, turn the water off while I’m shaving (which I only do once a week anyway), and I refuse to plant Kentucky Bluegrass or wash my car.

Now, unless I want the pipes in my parents guest house to freeze again (for the third time), I have to leave the water running for hours on end. What in the name of endangered species! I mean I might as well be shooting pocket foxes with arrows made from condor feathers dipped in whale fat while eating dolphin tainted tuna on enriched, white bread.

I lay awake at night as the temperature drops. With each drip of the faucet I feel hours of conservation go down the drain. It’s as if the granola me never happened. I’ve been erased. All the water I’ve saved while shaving for the last 17 years, gone in a single 10 degree night. Months of letting it mellow, never happened. It’s these life-altering moments that really make us stop and think…

What’s the point? I mean, if Texans are using more water in January than in July we’re all screwed right? When the best advise the local news has from Kansas City to Houston is to let your faucets drip… sheesh. I think I’m going to shave with the water running and take a nice, hot bath.

But I’m still not getting a haircut or a real job. (Nice try.)