Might be slowly turning into a water snob

I think I may be slowly evolving into a water snob.

No, this change has nothing to do with the tribulations of my community and its municipal water supply. Instead, the evolution arose from my aging refrigerator.

My fridge has an icemaker; it just doesn’t work. I’ve replaced it once but it eventually stopped working again. I believe the problem is rooted in the hard water we have in these parts that deposits a crusty scale on plumbing, coffee makers and icemakers.

I decided rather than replace the icemaker this time I would make ice the old fashion way — in ice trays. I got some silicon trays and wore out one set and started in on wearing out a second set. I decided after several years of running hot water over the trays to get them to release the ice I’d had enough. I also needed the extra freezer space.

I’d been seeing these countertop icemakers that make the fancy oval cubes (wait, oval cubes doesn’t make sense, oval ice pellets maybe) on Amazon and I decided that was the ticket. So I ordered one. By the time I got it I began to consider what the hard water scale might do to this marvelous contraption. So I went back to Amazon to consider how I might feed it with filtered water.

I eventually took the cheapest route, as I’m wont to do, that being a pitcher filter. It works great and isn’t nearly as much hassle as filling ice trays.

I make the ice from water filtered by the pitcher then I put the cubes, I mean pellets, in my Yeti cup and pour cold filtered water from the pitcher over them and I have great cold water all day and no bad taste the next morning after the ice has melted.

I’ve always hee hawed a bit at those who spend big money on fancy bottled water because I always filled mine from the tap. One person very close to me buys the Core brand that’s perfectly PH balanced and contains electrolytes. It runs $4 to $5 a bottle at the convenience store. She admitted she sometimes refills the sexy shaped bottle from the tap or cheaper bottled water. It’s all in the marketing.

I once got forcibly sucked into a multi-level-marketing scheme involving bottled water as the product. It was said to be glacial water with wonderful life-prolonging minerals in it. You could even see black glacial sludge in the bottom of the bottle. Since it was my boss (already a millionaire before the scheme) roping me into this deal it took lots of fast dancing and salesmanship to extricate myself from the pyramid scheme. If I’d put that much effort into selling it myself, I’d probably be rich now.

For now I’m content filtering out the glacial sludge and alkali with my little pitcher. Me, my icemaker and my coffeemaker may all live forever because of it. Now I just need to log back online and get replacement filters.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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