Wet. Wetter. Water.


Water is everywhere.

But. Not really. Not in truth.

We shouldn’t take it for granted. Here, in the United States, we mostly have clean drinking water. Such a gift, this is.

There are places, where people have to walk miles and miles, just to get a large bucket of water that is suitable for consumption. And then they walk it back to their shelter. Their homes. Most of us, here, just turn on a tap. Or worse. Buy it in a bottle.

It seems we would be smart enough, to get water to all the places that need it. But we aren’t smart enough. Time and again, I am reminded that we are mostly, an entire species of idiots.

Yet, water covers our planet. About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered. That is a lot. And the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water.

We can send Space Rovers to the surface of Mars.
We can pay a boxer, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., $285 million in 2018.
We can send our president to his Mar a Largo retreat every third day to golf, and 40 percent of our population applaud this.

Why can’t we figure out the water problem?

I know the oceans are full of salt.
But there sure ought to be a way to turn it unsalty. And pipe it where it needs to go.

This all started because I wondered what the smallest ocean was. I was thinking Indian, but I was wrong. With an area of 12 million square kilometers (5 million square miles), the Arctic Ocean is the smallest ocean. It is, as it turns out, more than five times smaller than the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

Still. That’s a lot of water.

I am not smart enough to figure these things out.
But I sure wish someone would.

Away from that thought, and on to this. I was also thinking about why I sink in water. Some people I know, float. Yes. They bob around in the water with very little concern of anything else. No effort is involved at all. They are buoyant.

When I get in any body of water, I drop. Like a rock. It takes a great deal of effort for me to stay afloat. We are all pretty much made up of the same matter. Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. If you want the entire breakdown, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. Depending on who you are looking at, the skin contains 64% water. This is where I may get lower marks than others. My skin is frequently dry. Unless I am in a pool. But I can’t imagine it is much more. Certainly not enough to make me sink like a lead balloon. And the rest of us goes with the muscles and kidneys at 79%. Oh, and our bones. They are 31% water.

Water.

It is serious business. An elixir of life.
And while we always need to think about the better path we could take for our water, we should be grateful and glad for it too.

And on that serious note.

Do you know why water never laughs at jokes? It isn’t a fan of dry humor.

Like I said. Serious.

Hey. Where do water droplets go to settle arguments? The Supreme Quart.

Water has feelings too, though.
The Ocean just broke up with the Pond. The Ocean thought the Pond was too shallow.

If all of this seems like too much to worry about, just keep the faith.

Make some Holy Water.
What? You don’t know how to make Holy Water?

You just boil the hell out of it.

===========

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It’s always our self we find in the sea.”
― e.e. cummings, 100 Selected Poems

===========

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

==========

“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary

============