This afternoon Girlfriend and The Kid stopped by my office a few minutes before closing time. She said to me, "Hey, did you hear about this thing? The Candyman told me about it just a few minutes ago, but it kinda sounds like a rumor."

I said, "No, that can't be true. If it were that bad, wouldn't the city have cops rolling through the streets using their loudspeakers to tell us to run for our lives? That's probably just a rumor."

Not five minutes later, Sister called me. She said, "Hey, did you hear about this thing? It was just on the five o'clock news." Well, that tears it. The Candyman says so, Sister says so, and now the five o'clock news says so. And knowing the sterling reputation and journalistic professionalism of our local news team, it surely must be true.

The city is trying to kill us.

They've put some kind of bacteria in the water. And not the good bacteria, like the kind that makes cheese. I wish it was the cheese-making bacteria. That would be so sweet! I would give almost anything to have nacho cheese sauce on tap.

But no, apparently this is bad bacteria. It's the kind of bacteria that makes your small intestine climb up your body and strangle your brain. And then while you're incapacitated it drinks all your beer and leaves your porn out for Girlfriend to find.

Supposedly the entire city water supply is now contaminated and will be until at least Monday. Oh, sure, the water department says they didn't put the bacteria in the water. But you and I know the truth. It was probably supposed to be a secret mind control bacteria and something went horribly wrong. The bacteria was supposed to make my small intestine gently massage my brain, but now that the bacteria is loose it's playing by it's own rules.

I didn't actually catch any of the news reports, so I don't know the city's official statement on the issue. I would imagine they're going to introduce some kind of James Bond Special Forces bacteria to kill the rogue mind control bacteria. For the next several days, my entire city will be consumed by an epic battle. Trillions of bacteria will be fighting for the future of my tap water. It's too bad this is all microscopic. It would make a great Bruckheimer movie.

So anyway, I finished my workday and we went to buy bottled water. What a fiasco that turned out to be. We were close enough to the beginning of The Great Water War of 2005 that mass panic hadn't yet set in. There was still plenty of water, but there was already a huge demand for it.

There were so many people buying water that the store clerks literally could not keep it on the shelves. Things got a little… ugly. There's no soap in the world that will ever truly wash the blood from my hands. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course. In the physical world, my hands washed perfectly clean with that generic pink stuff in the jumbo restroom dispenser.

Our life-giving water secured, we then hurried home to lock ourselves in the basement until at least Monday, at which time we'll emerge into the glorious sun of a world free of brain-strangling bacteria. And, disappointingly, a world also free of nacho cheese sauce on tap.