It’s Water Over the Dam, but Letter Is Still Amusing

Bob Bernhard, a retired employee of the Department of Water and Power, recently sent me a letter written some years ago by Will Durant, the late philosopher-historian, complaining about the size of his water bill. (Durant’s appeal resulted in a credit on his next bill.)

Evidently Bernhard had access to letters of complaint and saved some of them to amuse him in retirement. He now sends me another--written in 1971 by a woman in San Fernando.

Like Durant, this woman was complaining about a bill that she considered too high. Her style, however, is more satirical than that employed by the gentle philosopher.

Her letter follows:

“To whom it may concern:

“Units of water consumed is 108, as stated on the bill. If a unit represents 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons (as I was told by an employee of the DWP) you are stating that I have used 80,784 gallons of water in the past two months.

“That (according to Compton’s Encyclopedia on the bathing and drinking habits of elephants), could satisfy the needs of your average-sized elephant for four years and 155 days. Don’t ask me what size your average-sized elephant is--Compton either didn’t know or considered it irrelevant.

“However, I’m quite sure it exceeds the weight of my entire family several times, which, by the way, consists of one man, who, although he bathes, hasn’t drunk water since he discovered Coors beer in 1949; one kid, who although he drinks water, bathes only at gunpoint, and myself.

“I do bathe, but because I object to the Burnt Sienna tinge and the lumps in that mud-colored liquid which dribbles from the spigots, I have become addicted to Arrowhead Puritas.

“I am the owner of a small domestic establishment, not the Coliseum. 80,784 gallons could have dampened a fire (had there been a fire) at the rate of 1,800 gallons per minute for exactly 44.88 minutes, from an opened hydrant. That amount in cubic feet (10,800) could fill a super pool, 8 feet deep and 27 feet by 50 feet, and I don’t even own a plastic kiddie play pool.

“With that much water I could fill 1,923 king-size water beds, so I’m told by a friend who manufactures them. If I’ve used this much water, why is my lawn half-dead from a lack of it?

“If you are positive you haven’t confused me with someone who owns 27 elephants, then my meter belongs in the Smithsonian as the first machine to exhibit emotionalism common only to the human species--namely, greed.

“I expect to receive a reply, an explanation, and a serviceman to replace the idiot box in my front yard with one which is capable of functioning without these strange tendencies toward exaggeration.”

Alas, Bernhard does not know how this case was resolved--whether the customer received a new meter and a credit on her bill, or both. I would like to think that so eloquent a letter did not go unanswered.

I am not mathematician enough to know whether this woman’s figures (about bathing elephants and so on) are correct. She sounds positive. But I am skeptical about her complaint that her tap water was mud-colored. The water we have received from the DWP has always been clear, though it tastes somewhat of chemicals.

I had a long running battle with the late Bob Lee, a longtime executive with the department, over the purity of the water. I once referred to it as “artificial water,” thus provoking an indignant letter from Mr. Lee (who remained throughout his lifetime a good friend).

He insisted that the water was water, and was not in any sense artificial. I simply pointed out that the water was routinely adulterated by various chemicals, to make it safe to drink, and that thus it was artificial.

Mr. Lee never conceded an inch to me and took every occasion to chastise me for using that epithet. He was not moved by the fact that novelist Joe Wambaugh in one of his novels referred to such expensive bottled waters as Evian and Perrier as “designer water”--a sly comment on the vogue use of that adjective with every kind of consumer product from jeans to cosmetic surgery.

That letter-writer’s note that her husband hadn’t drunk water since he discovered Coors in 1949 may seem at first glance an admirable solution to the impending water shortage. In some parts of the world, in fact, beer is the only safe thing to drink. I survived our recent trek through Egypt by drinking nothing but beer and wine. But of course it takes water to make beer, and it takes water to grow grapes.

I don’t mean to make fun of the water shortage. It could soon be very real. One day soon we may all be bathing, like Cleopatra, in goat’s milk.