I'm Parched. Could You Get Me Another Cocktail?

I must have had a death wish at the time, but I decided to have a conversation about birth control with my father, the father of eleven children, oh, and a good Catholic. I was probably around the age of nineteen years old, and at that age I was a smart ass, I knew everything. Now my dad could have an intellectual conversation with you, however he did it at a much louder decibel than most people and with a few curse words thrown in for emphasis.

I don't exactly remember how it started, but I was for birth control and I told my dad so. His first comeback was that there are thousands of square miles of empty land in the western United States that people can live on. Somewhere along the line the train came off the tracks, and the conversation became personal. The last thing I remember my dad saying to me, or should I say shouting at me, was "SO, WHICH ONE OF YOUR BROTHERS OR SISTERS WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET RID OF? ASSHOLE.".

The thing that made me remember that conversation was the refilling of my swimming pool. The pool has finally been repaired and it just made me feel a little wasteful letting the water run for two days. We have been in a drought here in Florida and everybody's yard is a little brown around the edges, yet here I am dumping a few thousand gallons of water into a pool that I use just a few times a year. Out west where my dad expected all the excess population to live is also in bad shape, with reservoirs down as much as a hundred feet. Too many people, not enough water. My only defense for wasting water, is that my yard requires virtually no irrigation. I have planted mostly native species that only need the rain that they get on occasion.

I guess I'll ease my conscience and think of my eco-friendly yard while I float in my pool this summer. Or maybe I'll just have a few cocktails and float around in the cool water without thinking about the waste. After all that is the American way, not thinking.