I ran into Ted outside the hotel when I returned after lunch for the afternoon training session. He took a look at my Diet Coke and shook his head mournfully. “That stuff will kill you,” he said without irony, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “Just drink water, Dude”
I sighed. I hate when people with far worse habits than me warn me about the perils of Diet Coke, but I was in no mood for a debate. “Beautiful day, isn’t it ?” I said; it was a gorgeous autumn day in Manhattan. But Ted was not to be sidetracked. .
“Really, Dude,” he said. “Did you know you can use Diet Coke to clean the floor of your garage?”
“My mother used vinegar to wash her windows,” I countered, “so should I stop eating salad?”
He shook his head again. “I heard of someone who drank a six-pack of Diet Coke one day and their teeth dissolved.”
I let this one go because personally I would call someone who drinks a six pack of Diet Coke in a day a lightweight: when they can consume a six-pack before lunch we’ll talk.
“Drink water,” said Ted earnestly.
“I’m going inside,” I said shortly as Ted stepped on the remnants of his cigarette. “Coming?”
“In a minute,” he said. “I’m gonna hit Starbucks first.”
Later that day on the flight home I thought about Ted’s advice. Just because he’s an obese, chain-smoking, Starbucks-addicted alcoholic, I thought, did not necessarily make him wrong about the perils of Diet Coke. “I should drink more water,” I thought. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
The house was empty when I got home so I let the dog out, went through my mail and found a letter from the City. Across the top in bold capitals it said: “IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT FORT LAUDERDALE’S WATER.”
The letter wanted to notify me that the City water supply was contaminated with something called TTHMs. The letter stressed that TTHMs were not a health risk. The City stressed this three separate times but then asked me to share the letter with “all the other people” who drink City water. I was immediately suspicious: The City wanted me to spread the word that the water was safe?
I learned that the contamination was caused by decaying leaves and other vegetation in the drinking water (which kind of creeped me out) which, combined with improper chlorination, caused TTHM levels to spike because it has been a hot and rainy summer. “A hot, rainy summer in Fort Lauderdale,” I thought. “Never saw that coming, did they?”
I was subsequently assured that the water was safe except for old people, infants, pregnant women and anyone with a bad immune system and, comfortingly, learned that was “no immediate risk” from consuming TTHMs because it would be “many years,” before I would experience problems with my liver, kidneys or central nervous system, or develop cancer.
The letter assured me that if the City discovered that the water was unsafe to drink I would be alerted “within 24 hours.” I reread that line several times , trying to decide if I was comforted that I would only be drinking tainted, cancer-causing water for 24 hours. I decided that I wasn’t.
Towards the end the letter took a defensive turn with the assertion that drinking this tainted water was still safer than drinking water that had not been disinfected at all. “So now we have to choose between ‘bad’ and ‘real bad’ drinking water?” I thought bleakly.
Just then the dog, tired from her run, whined to come in for a drink of water: I poured her a Diet Coke.