[Colleens_Husband]

You know. If the world wasn't filled with a bunch of scumbags, there would be no need for this thread, but...........

Colleen went to a Relay for the Cure event in our town yesterday. There were several vendors that were, for the most part, offering volunteer services. There were booths which gave the various hospitals and the state government opportunities to let cancer victims and their families know about counseling services. There was a booth for Locks of Love. There were booths from some local businesses which were offering free trinkets, most of the booths manned by cancer survivors. There were a few booths selling food at a reduced cost for the day long event. You know. A bunch of people who pitched in and were trying to do a good deed. It was an event that the organizers could take a lot of pride in.

There was however one booth which had a semi-deranged pitchwoman giving away water which had some ridiculous health claims. The water was supposed to be slightly alkaline. You see, supposedly disease, and we all know that cancer is a disease, cannot survive in an alkaline environment. Since normal water is slightly acidic, then it actually could promote disease, including cancer. Of course she mentioned the liver, kidneys, and the spleen, so naturally, one had to assume that she knew what she was talking about. After all, who in the world even knows what the spleen does?

I listened to the pitch politely for a while until I saw that a few gullible souls were starting to get sucked in by the pitch so I decided that I should, in good conscience, turn on a lights so that this cockroach would climb back into the dark where she belonged.

"Excuse me, did you say water is slightly acidic?" I asked.

"Why yes it is" answered the cockroach.

"So why did chemists set a neutral pH value of 7.00 to the acidity of pure water?"

"Well, pure water is pH neutral, but what about all the additives they add to the water?"

"Reading the latest water board report, only pH neutral additives can be added to water as a matter of state and federal law. Just one more question. Can drinking water which is slightly alkaline change the alkalinity of your body?" I asked.

"It only makes sense that if you add alkaline into your body through drinking water that your body alkalinity will increase." proudly proclaimed the cockroach.

"Really? I thought body acidity is a fairly complex system which is regulated by thirst, kidney, and liver function, and by trying to force the body to be more alkaline or acidic will only make the internal organs work harder to try to maintain a normal pH level."

The cockroach began to get pretty peeved at me at this point. She asked if I even cared about the cancer survivors and those individuals who were fighting cancer.

"So you are making the implication that this water can fight cancer?"

"Yes, it can. It fights all diseases," said the cockroach.

"What complete dummies we all are. We inhumanely watch our loved ones go through horrific operations, radiation, and chemotherapy treatments when we could just be slurping down over-priced water instead. Why in the name of God aren't the doctors tuned into this miracle cure?"

"It's all about profit and big pharmacology!" she said.

So there you have it, the big conspiracy theory. You all went through so much grief instead of just drinking alkaline water because it is all a plot to make money. Never mind that our HMO is a non-profit organization. They are in on it too for some strange reason.

Colleen went back and got a bottle of the alkaline water. I tested it with a pH test kit we had laying around the house and the alkaline water had a pH of 7.00, the same as our tap water. Nice.

So is it wrong of me to wish that the cockroach goes on a fishing trip and gets a salmon treble hook snagged in her lip? Is it wrong of me to dream about the cockroach riding a motorcycle under a low strung piano wire, and thwippppp!!, her head comes off.

The thing that worries me the most is that someone will eventually believe the cockroach and think they are invulnerable to cancer and stop doing PAP smears or Mammograms. Maybe someone will have cancer and choose to drink this supposedly alkaline water instead of getting medical help which could save their lives.