This week at work has been pretty good evidence that anything could happen at any time. “Anything” might not even be that big a deal sometimes, but it can still help to think ahead. On Tuesday morning, we all got an email that a boil water notice had been put in place for much of the central city. Long story short, we had all been drinking from a pond since probably Monday night.
The first thing I had to do was empty my drink bottle. I’d just filled it from the water cooler in my building, so it could have contained contaminated water. That took out my drink bottle too, because without clean tap water there was no way to decontaminate the bottle itself.
This made me very thirsty all of a sudden.
It took me ages to realise that I had my GHB under my desk, and that I had packed at least two ways to purify water. In the mean time, Countdown supermarket had completely sold out of bottled water.
I got the Lifestraw out and had a look at it. It says on the outside that it’s important to carefully follow the user manual. So I found the manual online, and it seemed to imply that before using the thing for the first time, you have to soak it in clean water for 20 seconds. I didn’t have any clean water!
The next day I brought some clean water from home and decided to test the Lifestraw. I stood it in my water bottle for 20 seconds and then took five quick sips and instructed. The first few sips were dry, and then I got some really nice plastic-tasting water. What did I expect?
My Lifestraw is sitting on my desk drying over the weekend before I put it back in the bag. The boil water notice has been lifted now, but I’m glad I was prompted to test (and therefore prime) my Lifestraw. If you’ve got one sitting in a bag waiting for first use, give it a try first so that you know what to expect.