Entry 2: Seeds of an Idea

“Yea so that’s going be about seven thousand five hundred dollars”.

HA! Hilarious….Oh wait, he’s not kidding.

“For a water filter?”

“Yes”

“Does this water filter out gold?”

“Ha, we need it, can we get it?”

Can we get it? What a question. Well, can we not get it? No. After spending many times more than that on a new factory, we cannot exactly let a water filter be our hang up. Our payables were well past due, our credit facility was maxed out, our receivables had been scraped to the bone, and payroll was just barely going to make it this week. Our sales accounts were propelling the company like a rocket ship, we just had the classic issue of never having any actual cash. Pay for a water filter or pay a vendor who supplied us critical goods? Is that a choice?

“Yes, we can get it”.

Whose fault was this? No idea. Probably mine. I drove home. Seven-thousand-five-hundred dollars for a water filter. Ouch. We may as well throw out all our products and just sell bottled water. What about bottling “your local water”? Oh, right, that already exists. Also, not a new concept.

I woke up the next morning. What else do people use water for? Is there something there?

I turned on the fossette on in my apartment. Ironically, brown water splashed out. Great. The town was water testing this month. Still “safe to drink”, just not safe to smell. Not encouraging.

I needed, needed, coffee. It was 4:30 a.m., no coffee shops were open. The water smelled like putrid chlorine. I heated up the kettle and let it boil for an extra five minutes. Not having caffeine was more intimidating than whatever health side effects this would inevitably bring on later in life. I poured the water into French press. Five minutes later I took a sip. Yep, that tasted like somebody s*&% in my coffee.

What about water for coffee?

Hmm.