drinking water Archives • Bitches Get Riches

Disaster preparedness for chill people doesn’t really seem to exist. Like many personal finance nerds, I am a resource hoarder to my squirrelly little core. I finish every video game with a massive pile of money and top-tier supplies I worked feverishly to acquire, but never actually used.

It’s not a virtue… it’s an -itis. Don’t be like me, kids! Use those megalixers!

Given this facet of my personality, you’d think I’d be drawn to the survivalism (aka “prepping”) community. And I am—but I’ve never really gotten into it. Because most survivalist literature is too extreme for me. Exxxtreme, you could say. I swear I’ve read more than one “beginner’s guide” suggesting tools for your inevitable DIY dentistry. There is no Hint of Sea Salt prepping! FLAVOR-BLASTED ONLY!

But the coronavirus pandemic gave everyone fresh, realistic insights into what a modern large-scale disaster really looks like. Additionally, mine and Piggy’s homes have recently taken a pounding from unusual weather events caused by climate change (floods and storms for me, wildfires and droughts for Piggy). So I spent a lot of time this year thinking about this question:

What have I done—or owned—that made me actually safer or happier during a disaster?

It was hard to articulate… but it definitely wasn’t iodine tablets and camp stoves! See? I was right! As usual, I always find retrospective validation for my laziness, unpreparedness, and/or procrastination.

After a lot of deep thinking, I finally feel prepared (PREPPED?!) to define my own brand of survivalism. This is disaster preparedness for chill people!

One time during my freshman year of college, I walked into my dorm to find my pals* holding up a bottle of Fiji water like it was the Holy Grail. Recently escaped country bumpkin that I was, I had never heard of Fiji bottled water. “Oh, you have to try it!” they exclaimed reverently, “It’s the best water.”

I sipped. I was underwhelmed. “Tastes just like my well water back home,” I explained. They gave me looks that clearly said, “Take your fairy tale upbringing in a sylvan glade drinking unicorn tears and shove it.”

All of which is to say that I have never been impressed with our country’s feverish devotion to bottled water. And here’s why I am perfectly vindicated in that point of view.

*Editorial note from Kitty: I’m so impressed that Piggy had the discretion and restraint to not out me as the Fiji Water Friend. It is delicious water! I just hadn’t yet processed that it was flown from halfway across the world in non-biodegradable plastic bottles. A behavior so absurd it would make the citizens of Panem’s Capitol blush!