And the countdown to the big thirst is on

I made it out to the Guilford College Homecoming festivities this past Friday night, to see old-time faves The Squirrel Nut Zippers (review to come), but in case I needed a reminder, there's a drought going on. A major one, even. A rather epic one even to the point that even we, water-wasting mid-Atlantic Yanks and Rebs that we are, have started to take notice and have started to feel the harsh pinch of inconvenience. To get an idea of just how bad it is (well, state-wide, even), take a look here from the graphics from the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council. Keep in mind 'notice' does not necessarily mean converting to more water-saving measures like those used in Asia, Europe and Australia (such as the dual flush toilet and reduced flow shower head)...that's a bit too draconian still...but hey, in some places we are talking about closing down the car washes and all residential watering until this crisis lessens. Fines for water abuse, and even the monitoring for such fines, clearly aren't working and/or aren't consistent, Lord knows.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I was greeted with these signs plastered in the womens' bathroom at the performance hall at Guilford (the only place, still, where I have seen such reminders all this summer):



Sorry for the crumpled up appearance, as several of these (including the one captured here by my trusty digital), had been tossed in the trash. Why? Because while these lovelies depicted Greensboro as The Grand Canyon of dryness, outside (for the first time in weeks if not in months) it was raining buckets (to the point that grown adults were playing around in it at 11pm in the parking lot, it was such a welcome sight). And who needs to be reminded to conserve water when it's raining, after all? I wonder now if any of the signs made it through the weekend's showers.

Unfortunately, our precious rain was only for about two days, and off and on at that. Now we're back to counting down the days until our various municipal water supplies are completely depleted, and whether or not we really need to go to a higher level of water restrictions. How quickly I forget...drought is temporary, but denial is forever, or so it seems.