Always Smell the Water

My family buys gallons of water at a time. We have probably 9 one-gallon jugs and 1 three-gallon jug that we fill with water once a week at least. We go to the grocery store and bring a cart full of jugs to be filled with reverse osmosis water for $.30 per gallon. Heaven knows if that’s a reasonable price or not. But regardless, my family does it.

I make at least a few cups of tea per day. I used to get the water from the faucet since it would be boiled anyway, and my flawed rationalization assumed that all of the contaminants in the water would be burned away. Eventually my mom drilled it into my head to use the jugs of water for my tea. So I did.

We keep the full jugs of water in the garage and bring them out one at a time as needed. I made tea one day, and used the jug that I found by the sink. It was laying on its side, but it had liquid in it, so I didn’t think anything of it. Could’ve just been knocked over.

So I pour the contents of the jug into the kettle and bring them to a boil. I steep my tea and wait about 15 minutes to start sipping. It tastes awful, but I continue to drink it because I made it and the tea was just probably burnt or something. After drinking about half of my cup, I realize that the drink isn’t bitter; it’s sour. It’s sour because it wasn’t water. It’s sour because it was vinegar.

Horrified, I walk downstairs and dump out the second half of my mug, realizing I just drank close to a full cup of berry flavored vinegar. That jug hadn’t been knocked over and wasn’t on its side by accident. It was being cleaned. With vinegar. And I drank it. I drank 8 fluid ounces of vinegar.

So please… smell the water before you drink it.