Suck it Up, Ya Pussies

In a recent episode of Modern Family (the awesomeness, oh the awesomeness), the flamboyant gay character Cam is directing the play at the school attended by two of the extended family's children. When his partner Mitchell suggests that perhaps Cam's directing ambitions are a little steep for an elementary school play, Cam indignantly says "Why do you always have a to throw a wet blanket on my dreams? You do it all the time and do you know what I end up with? Wet dreams -- I heard it as soon as I said it; just leave it alone."

I'm using this as a humorous example of a curious phenomenon. Some people do indeed hear the words that come out of their own mouths - other people? Not so much. Once I was standing around in Halfway Lake Provincial Park with my junior ranger boyfriend and some of his friends. One of them asked me why I kept ripping leaves off the bush and tearing them up into little pieces, and I said "I don't know, I like to have something to do with my hands", and before it was even out of my mouth I knew it was a mistake (see how I followed one possibly dirty statement with another one there?). On the other hand, I had a friend who once walked up to a guy in a parking lot and said "could you please jump me?" when her car was dead and couldn't figure out why everyone was laughing.

Our city council recently had to impose an ban on outside water use for most of the summer in parts of Ottawa, including the part where I live. This is due to a faulty water main, which means we'll be getting our water for the next few months through a much smaller pipe. If we overuse water, the system will become depressurized or dry, which results in bacteria growth which in turn could result in indoor water being unsafe to drink without boiling. In order to mitigate the inconvenience, the city is offering water trucks to top up pools and hot tubs and rebates on rain barrels.

Okay, it's not ideal. Our summers are hot, and few images are more evocative of summer than kids running through a sprinkler. I enjoy gardening, and looking at other people's gardens when I walk around the neighbourhood. But some of the reactions I've read and heard in the past few days seem, to say the least, out of proportion, and I keep thinking "do you seriously not HEAR yourself? Because if you did, how can you say that with a straight face?" It's "ridiculous" -- which part? That a water pipe was faulty? That we have to conserve water in order to maintain its safety for drinking? That we have to not do a few things that, honestly, are kind of dumbass anyway (like watering grass that serves absolutely no practical purpose)? Let's not forget -- they're topping up HOT TUBS -- this isn't exactly the pinnacle of hardship and deprivation. Someone the paper interviewed said "rain barrels? Come on, this is getting out of hand - it's like the green bins in the recycling program". You'd think we'd been asked to boil our children rather than gather rainwater and compost food. And then there's my favourite so far -- "this isn't a third-world country!" Um, yeah -- that's why our worst problem at the moment is dusty cars and brown lawns rather than inadequate food, medicine or shelter.

I get it. It sucks. We're used to our modern conveniences being on-hand and uninterrupted. If I had young children who were in love with their turtle pool, or had just moved into a house that didn't have a lawn yet, I'd be annoyed. ANNOYED. Not enraged or livid or apoplectic. Government makes a lot of decisions that are shortsighted, wrongheaded, and just plain stupid. This doesn't appear to be one of them, and no matter how many times people stamp their feet and say it's 'unacceptable', it doesn't change the fact that it appears to be necessary. Of course, a lot of people are taking the measured approach - like one woman in the schoolyard said "we're still better off than 98% of the planet". That's someone who hears what she says. Unlike these people.