Home Delivery, Nudity And West Coast Lunacy

If there’s one thing most of us never want to be accused of, it’s being resistant to new ideas.  

Yet there are ideas that are smart. Ideas that are silly. And ideas that are stupendously stupid.

Let’s begin with a smart one, shall we?

On Wednesday morning I woke with a migraine. Hideous start to the day.

If you suffer from these headaches, you know that what they say is true: The worst thing about a migraine is knowing no one ever died from one.

Migraine sufferers also know that the one home remedy that helps is caffeine. It constricts the blood vessels to the head. Or opens them. I can never remember. All I know is it works. Don’t take my word for it, ask a doc.

So when my daughter texted to see if I was making storm preparations I told her no. I was sick.

“Ugh, that sucks! What can I bring you?” she asked from her house 17 miles away.

I managed a one-word reply: “Coke.”

“Sending it via Amazon,” she fired back. “It will get there quicker than me bringing it. Can I get you anything else?"

I was too weak to protest.

Before I knew it, a case of Coke and a box of Saltines were on my front porch. The cost to my daughter was the price of the items, plus a 5 buck delivery fee. Amazing.

Amazon Prime Now - slogan: “Skip the Trip”- saved her a drive across town and eliminated the chance that I’d rally just long enough to send her on other errands. It also spared me making small talk when I felt like road kill.

A win-win.

Coke was consumed. Headache receded in time for me to head to Kroger where I waited in a line 30 deep for cheese and crackers. 

Thanks to my quick-thinking millennial, the day was not a total loss. 

Of course, there are other new ideas not so easy to embrace.

Like the naked exercise classes being offered at Hanson Fitness in New York City - a gym reportedly frequented by celebrities.

Clearly these classes are not for the flabby New Year’s resolution crowd. Or shy athletes. Or the self-conscious. 

I mean, I'm not sure where you're supposed to look when everyone’s sweating and various body parts are swinging.

Why nude workouts? Supposedly, they “allow the skin to breathe.”

Thanks, but I think I’ll just do a naked lap around the empty house after my shower. That's all the breathing my skin ever needs.

Now let’s examine a fad on the West Coast that is both dopey and dangerous.

It’s the “off-the-grid water” movement. Folks who’d rather drink the stuff that drips off their roofs than the treated water coming out of their pipes. They seek “unfiltered, untreated, unsterilized” water, and they're not talking about Smart Water, Dasani or Perrier, either.

These kooks crave the stuff that’s full of nature: You know, E. coli, parasites and jet fuel. 

Tasty.

A New York Times report makes these devotees sound as wacky as the old John Birchers who believed fluorinated drinking water was part of a communist conspiracy.

“Tap water?” asked Mukhande Singh, founder of Live Water. “You’re drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them. Chloramine and on top of that they’re putting in fluoride. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.”

I wouldn’t call him a conspiracy theorist. He's a risk taker and a science denier. 

Someone should remind Mr. Singh and his friends that millions of people around the globe would give anything for the clean water we drink in the U.S.

Oh well, drink up, tap-water skeptics! 

Darwinism, you know.