Las Vegas water out of the tap is … not good. It tastes awful, like nothing I’ve ever had anywhere. I’m sure this is the most first-world observation ever, with places such as Flint and Iowa having unsafe water, much of the world trekking for what they’ll use that day (which is of far worse quality) and a few metropolises approaching Day Zero — when local supplies run out completely.
But that doesn’t make what’s here any better. I’ll see people in the elevator carrying bottled water to their room, and it’s an easy icebreaker. I tell them, “That’s the smartest thing you’ll do here all week.” They universally agree.
It also makes the idea of living here precarious. It’ll be years, maybe even decades, before it’s an actual crisis in Las Vegas, but it feels as if the situation is never going to improve. The whole thing is like a play on the Woody Allen joke about one old lady telling another about the inferior food at a restaurant. The second agrees, saying, “And such small portions, too!”
“Vegas water is terrible!” “And there’s so little of it, too!” The major difference, of course, being that no one needs to eat at that restaurant. Everybody needs water.
