Sink water and Sirius radio

I’m all for prosperity and innovation. If you can build a better mouse trap, have at it. But sometimes prosperity and innovation can lead men and women down some strange paths. Strange paths indeed.  
I love to re-fill water bottles. If you read my column from a few years ago, you know that I will wash that disposable plastic bottle until it’s near the disintegration stage. I’m proud of that fact. I was at a speaking engagement recently and reached over to a kitchen sink to fill my bottle with water. My host was aghast, “No, Lisa! No! That’s sink water.”
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, that’s SINK water! You don’t want to drink SINK water!”
“I don’t?”
“Oh, absolutely not!”
“Is there a Colorado spring-fed fountain out back that I’m unaware of?”
She laughed. “No. We’ll just get you a new bottle of water.”
Hence, my renewed desire to share this significant tidbit of information with all readers everywhere. When you turn on your kitchen sink, a clear substance comes pouring out. That substance is water, friends. H2O. It is the liquid of life and many people work hard to insure its drinkability. The water that comes in a plastic bottle is also water. It just comes from a different sink and it costs money. Enough said.
Now let’s talk Sirius radio. If you don’t know what Sirius radio is, well, it’s hard to explain. It’s a system of about a million radio channels with no commercials. I was in a rental car recently that had Sirius radio and I learned a lot of things about the world. Of course, I’m obligated to pass those discoveries on to you.
There’s a Sirius channel for every genre of music under the sun. And some channels for music genres that haven’t even been invented yet. Do you know what spa music is? There’s a Sirius channel dedicated to spa music. Warning: Don’t listen to spa music while you’re driving. It will put you in a near coma.
There’s a channel for Hip Hop, Hip Hop Romance, Simply Sinatra, Elvis, Broadway, Korean Pop, Opera and Hair Nation. What’s Hair Nation? It’s a channel dedicated to bands with big hair. If you’ve been dreaming of listening to big-haired bands 24 hours a day, Sirius radio has got you covered.
Let’s talk Sirius sports channels. If there’s one thing Sirius radio taught me, it’s that Americans love to hear men chat about other men’s ability to run or jump or catch a ball. Who knew there were over 200 ways to say, “If they outscore those other guys, I think they can pull off a win.”
There are weather channels and political channels. French channels and Spanish channels. But my favorite channels of all? Traffic channels. Yep! If you really want to feel happy about your rural/small town lifestyle, just listen to the channel dedicated to New York City traffic. You will whisper a prayer of thanks.
I rarely find myself wanting to listen to Korean pop music or the French Canadian opera channel. But evidently, there are a lot of people who do. And I’m fine with that. Listening to opera doesn’t make anyone uppity. It’s the fear of sink water that does that.
Lisa Smartt may be contacted at lisa@lisasmartt.com.

Published in The Messenger 2.27.13

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