They Call Me Mellow Yellow

We here as are many of you in the Southwest are in a severe drought condition. We even have warnings sent out by the local water districts and commercials on the radio and television about conserving water. We even have the local water police. Yes they will give you ticket if they catch you rinsing off your car or watering your garden with a garden hose. Heck it is the hot topic from Starbucks to Dinner tables all around our little neck of the desert sage. So we are all a little more water conscience. Now I have several pretty durn good ideas, if you ask me and you didn’t, to help in the conservation of water. You see I have lived in an R.V. for the better part of a year. We sometimes have water and sewer hook-ups and sometimes not. The technical R.V.er term is dry camping which if you ask me is a whole lot like dry-humping, a whole lot of action without much satisfaction. Anyway if you just pretend you live in an R.V. and pretend you are dry-camping (I know there is a whole lot of pretending here just like dry-humping) then you will conserve a whole lot of water.

Let’s talk about the “Navy” shower. No that is not code for some lewd and lascivious act it means you shower like you’re on a ship. Go to Squal*Mart or your favorite discount store and buy a tub large enough to stand in but small enough to fit in the bottom of your shower. Now go home and put the tub into your shower. You step into the shower with your clothes off unless its laundry day then you can leave them on. It’s totally up to you. You turn on the water and wet yourself down quickly. Now turn the water OFF. Yes I said OFF. So now you’re standing there cold wet and dripping. You remembered to wet your wash cloth too didn’t you? Well turn the water back on for exactly 8.2 seconds and wet your wash cloth. Then soap up head to toe; remember to get all those cracks and crannies. While you are standing there shivering and shaking shampoo your hair and shave. If you are a female this takes a little longer because there is more area to cover plus it’s hard to shave and not cut off the tops of all your goose pimples. Now turn the water back on and rinse off. You will be jumping around in the shower since you did not allow the water heater enough time to send the hot water through the pipes across the house and the water will be frigid. Yes even in the middle of August it will be frigid and no, I don’t know why. Now you are allowed to run the water only long enough to get the soap out of your eyes and mostly out of your hair.

You are now cold, wet, soapy and cussing because you didn’t get all of the shampoo out and it is now dripping into your eye. You have shut the water off and are now allowed to apply the conditioner to your hair if you are female. Males at this point are ready to step out of the shower and begin drying off. Ladies you now have exactly 22 seconds of water time to get all the conditioner and shampoo from your hair and rinse the now gushing blood from the nicks and cuts on your legs and underarms. Step out and both sexes may now liberally apply little dabs of toilet paper to their numerous oozing cuts. Yes I realize this is wasting good toilet paper but would you rather bleed to death?

You now have a bucket/tub with approximately four gallons of water. This water is invaluable and is to be scooped from the tub and used to flush the toilet. Once you have completed your bathroom ritual you must remember to scoop when you poop. Now the normal toilet uses 3 to 6 gallons of water a day and a normal person uses the toilet up to 18 times a day your not going to get a whole lot of flushes out it but hey any little bit helps, right? Someday I’ll explain how to conserve on toilet paper.

The local radio station is advertising “if it’s yellow just be mellow”. It took me several times to understand what they were saying. I mean I never professed to be a rocket scientist but in hippy-dippy language that means you are allowed to do exactly what your mother told you NOT to do. You may pee in the shower. No really KNBC said you could and they take precedent over your mother. Me personally? I just prefer to save my shower water.

Our next stop? The kitchen. Now first of all I love to cook. Cooking leads to lots of dirty pots, pans and dishes. We all want to be environmentally correct and not contribute to the mass in landfills. It is a Catch 22. I mean you can save water and use paper plates or you can save landfills and use regular washable plates. I use regular plates but my theory is that if I use a paper plate it will end up leaking on me, which in turn will cause me to have to wash more clothes and that uses more water and if it is something sticky will cause me to have to take another two and a half minute shower which will waste another 4 gallons of water. So in my pea brain or is it pee-brain? I am saving water by using regular plates. So when it comes time to clean up again you must take a trip to your local Squal*Mart and for Neptune’s sake try to gather all your supplies at once other wise you are wasting fuel. Purchase a wash basin, you find them on the sameaisle with the dish drainers. Remember back when you used to hand wash your dishes? You stacked them in a metal or rubber slotted container to drain and dry? Yeah they are located next to them. Now buy two of them, you’ll thank me later. Take them home and place one in each side of the sink. Now when you get ready to wash your dishes you will fill one up with soapy water and the other up with clear water. Wash in the soapy tub and rinse in the clear tub then put your dishes in the drainer to dry. WHAT? You didn’t buy the drainer when you were at the Squal*Mart? Do I have to hold your hand? Now you can use your rinse water to wipe down cabinets, counter tops and to get that bar-b-que sauce off the ceiling. I get a little messy eating ribs. Once you’ve cleaned up and wiped everything down you can use the dirty water to water your outside plants. The little bit of soap helps with insect control and any clinger-on pieces of lettuce or veggies acts as compost. Are you following my win/win scenario here? Next your clean rinse water can be used to; you guessed it, flush the toilet.

Now I’m sure you’re sitting there saying “Gladys that sure is a whole lot of trouble to go through to save a couple of gallons of water.” You are absolutely positively right. Remember when I told you that I once lived for a good part of a year in an R.V.? I feel like I know a little something about conserving water. You see if you are dry camping and you fill your tanks up with water before it's time to leave it can get messy. Your options are to conserve water or to use the great outdoors as your facilities. I will do a little more work and stay in the safety of my R.V. When you’re staying in a campsite known as the park where the lady got her face eaten off by a cougar park, you will understand my desire to work a little harder and spend less time using the facilities outside. My face isn’t much but I like it where it is and not inside some cougar’s belly.

Which brings me back to why I don't like dry camping anymore than dry humping. Somebody is bound to get hurt.

So remember if its yellow be mellow and if you poop be sure to scoop. That ends your water conservation tips for the day.