To Whom it May Concern,
I was forced to drink from the water fountain today at the **** location and wanted to bring an interesting discovery to your attention. Perhaps "forced" is too strong a word - after all, no one held a gun to my head or threatened to beat me up if I didn't drink from the fountain. It was my own laziness, which seems to grow more intense with every passing year. It may be an Irish thing, or perhaps just an unfortunately strong cog in my DNA. Either way, I do not hold you or anyone else responsible for my drinking of the fountain, when it is obviously a clear and standard option to simply gather up my water bottle and walk to the cafeteria, where I am welcome and encouraged to fill the bottle with ice and presumably filtered water.
Which I normally do.
Today, however, whether I was pressed for time or simply bowing to the growing laziness that is beginning to cover me like a burial shroud, I stopped on the way to my destination and sipped from the fountain. I was surprised to find, after pulling a "Danny Thomas" and spritzing the water from my mouth like a garden hose with perfect, beautiful lips, that the water tasted like it had been shunted into the building from a golf course lake or the runoff from a garbage-dump.
Golf course lakes are the worst, having eagerly consumed over the years, scores of my golfballs (on which I always take the time to draw on a caricature of a cock'n'balls with a sharpie, for the amusement and delight of those who may find the balls after one of my many errant shots), a couple of my golf clubs and a poorly thrown full can of Bud Light, which was tossed well out of my reach and into a muddy pond.
The worst golf-course lake experience I had was when my twin daughters were toddlers and we were vacationing on Hilton Head Island. Taking the girls for a walk, I came across a crocodile (or an alligator - I can't tell the difference, especially when I am working myself in a panic and begininning to hyperventilate, as I was that fine Hilton Headian morning) that was over 8-feet long. I don't want to go into details, but as I hurried my daughters along, I had to consider which one I would leave behind for the croc, should it decide to pursue me and my family. It would have been a difficult decision, of course, and I would have been sad, but I am a problem-solver by nature and if I had needed to give up one to save the other and myself, well - at least I would still be alive to sire her replacement.
But that's not why I'm writing today.
I was wondering if it would be possible to have a filtration device installed on the water coolers around the building? I know this would be costly, but perhaps we could sell the shuffleboard table in the cafeteria (where the tasty water lives) - it does not sit level and the pucks are all chipped up, presumably by those who do not play the game well and think it the fault of the pucks and not the angle at which the table is listing.
We could also sell the ping-pong table that is in one of the stadiums. After all, the other stadia do not have tables and I think it's unfair to allow only that select group to hone their ping-pong skills and not the others. It can only lead to friction later.
If you think that it is still too costly or not feasable to install filters, perhaps we can repurpose the fountains into coi-ponds or ornamental fountainry, in which passersby can toss coins and make wishes. If enough coins are collected, we can add this to the Filtration Fund, which we can start with seed money from the sale of the ping-pong table and shuffleboard.
If nothing else, maybe we can put a warning sign like this above the fountains so that no one gets sick or spits the water all over their shirt like I did:
As always, if there is anything I can do to assist, please do not hesitate to let me know.
The area code for Atlanta is 678, in case you need it.
Thanks!
Best regards,
Jerry Ford
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