confession: all tap water, all the time!

Am I the only person in New York who drinks tap water? Is admitting that evidence of unspeakable gaucherie? Am I revealing my Roseanne-watching roots? Fine, fine.

I was teaching a class of high school students and discovered that every single one of the students' families drinks bottled water exclusively, often having it delivered to their homes in large jugs for a cooler-type dispenser.

I mean, I spent four years of college carrying around a Nalgene bottle and refilling it at water fountains. When you're camping, the bottle's wide neck allows it to be refilled in streams (after which you'd throw in iodine tablets and perhaps a few orange peels).

From ABC news:

"20/20" took five bottles of national brands of bottled water and a sample of tap water from a drinking fountain in the middle of New York City and sent them to microbiologist Aaron Margolin of the University of New Hampshire to test for bacteria that can make you sick, like e. coli.

"There was actually no difference between the New York City tap water and the bottled waters that we evaluated," he said.

...Many scientists have run tests like that and have consistently found that tap water is as good for you as bottled waters that cost 500 times more.

...Big-selling Dasani and Aquafina are also just reprocessed tap water from cities around the country. One of Aquafina's sources is the Detroit River!

Go Ask Alice agrees, in one of her few non-lube-related questions ever.

Can I also say I hate restaurants that try to make you feel inferior for ordering regular water? "Still or sparkling?" is a question I only want to be asked in relation to burlesque dancers' tits.