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Comment by chousuke | Hacker News Reader

What kind of water are these people drinking? I don't understand how you could be dehydrated and hate the taste of water unless it's severely contaminated. A glass of water when you need it is the best damn thing ever.

I'm pretty used to crazy people existing, but this one just does not compute.

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Water taste can vary depending on the municipality and how they treat and transmit it. Look at how Flint fucked up their water supply. I could see people who live there never trusting water from a tap ever again.

I mainly only drink water, but note that not everywhere in the world can you "drink" the water. My grandfather arrived at a US airforce base in Japan with his family in tow. This was in 1955 or so. They had a nice house on base. But the first time they turned on the kitchen sink, clear water came out... but also worms.

I spent most of my teenage years in several small towns along the Texas gulf coast. In most of these small towns, there was city supplied water, but it did not come from some water company that had ran thousands of miles of water mains. Instead every couple of blocks, there was a "water well" and a large 500-1000 gallon water/pressure tank which supplied water to a couple of blocks. I was told that since we were only a couple of miles from the beach that the wells were not that deep. I'd heard figures of "just 30ft", but not sure if that was true. Nonetheless, that was some nasty water. I still drank it though. Sometime in 1995 we got a brita water pitcher, it helped, but not much. Almost no one drank the stuff.

The worst case, I was visiting a friend that had moved into deep east Texas. The water was horrid. Almost impossible to drink. I took a shower that night, and it couldn't even rinse the soap off of me. My first day there, I mainly only drank beer. After going to bed late (still covered in soap), I woke up the next morning with a partial headache and a huge thirst from having no water the day before. I stumbled through the house to the kitchen sink. Found a large cup, filled it to the brim. Took a big gulp. The water was cool and quenching (or so I thought), but it was amiss. The taste, the thickness. I couldn't do it. I started gagging heavily. Nothing came up as my stomach was empty.. but still.. the water made a very thirsty man nearly puke. I took a step back and looked at my other options. There was still some cheap beer left, and there was a 2 liter bottle of diet pepsi on top of the fridge. I can't remember what my choice was, perhaps I just passed out...

> the first time they turned on the kitchen sink, clear water came out... but also worms.

Whatever water tank/deposit they used had not been cleaned in ages. Surprising considering recruits are basically free workforce.

Ew. Ew ew ew. And here I was, thinking that water sanitation was a third world slum/war-destroyed country issue...well consider me informed.

If you have a good water supply, absolutely.

A lot of treated water tastes horribly of chlorine. Untreated water in some areas reeks of sulfur.

If you grew up in one of these places, dinking only juice and soda, then not even wanting to drink bottled water is conceivable.

A relative in Ohio only drank Fresca - the water from the tap smelled like rotten eggs. If I lived there I’d start to be disgusted by water too.

I have an uncle-in-law (is that a thing?) that exclusively drinks coffee and Diet Coke. I thought he was joking until we went on a 10 day family vacation, and I never once him drink anything else. Does not compute indeed.

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