OK, we're a day into it, A day into realising that while you may lead a horse to water, when he gets there, the fecker's gonna cost you a few bob. On Tuesday we splashed around in the bathroom like an orgy in the last days of Pompeii, but since then, we've been up half the night trying to ensure that the drop dripping from the tap in the kitchen is captured for the tay for breakfast. So what are we to do? How can we live the lifes of post-Celtic Tiger metrosexuals used to our washing and waxing and shaving and conditioning and scents that could kill an ass from 20 paces. How are we going to cope knowing that everytime you hear a flush, your wallet has a bowel movement? The days and nights of the much coiffured sweet smelling high heeled gelled back brigade hitting the clubs may soon be a thing of the past. Good old poor hygiene of the 70s and 80s will come back into vogue. A shower will become a luxury even if you do manage to get three a month. Lattes will replace straight coffees. Spuds will be steamed not boiled, car washes will become car polishes; horses at the racecourse will have to be rubbed down with a wet Babywipe instead of the traditional hosing. And gorse fires will be let burn burn burn. So life as we know it has changed immeasurably. So what can we do to save a few bob. Here are a few tips.
— Make sure you wear, rewear and then rewear again. In fact wear your clothes til they stink. For a start it is the decree of the State that the citizens will change their underwear every day. Paddy, you can change with Martin. Mary will you change with Sheila...and so on.
— Spray cheap perfume on your clothes to take away the smells. You might smell like a French whorehouse but it'll give you a few days grace without washing. And you might pull, but only on the first day.
— Join a naturist society. Then with yourself and the whole family naked in the car, go along to the car wash, leave the windows down and have a shower in a choice of flavours. New car smell or plush leather. Ideally do this on the way home from the veg shop so you can get the spuds and carrots washed before you get home.
— While it might have been part of official policy before, water saving measures will dictate that we should all pee in the shower, so as to save water in the flushing. Those of you who have only baths in your house, this may not be the option for you, but sure, try it and get back to us. But stand well back.
— Buy a “second house” which has a cheaper flat rate for water. Burn down your first house (fire brigade won’t be able to save it anyway ) and then live in the second house cheaper.
— Bring back the art of visiting your nbeighbours – In the January sales, buy up as many boxes of USA biscuits as you can on the cheap. Then use them to give to your neighbours when you and your family go for a surprise visit every week.. Then after you have the cup of tay, make sure all of ye take the opportunity to use the loo in the neighbours’ house. “Don't say we never brought ya anything, Bridgie.”
— Alternatively you get your Advertiser every week, go straight to the property pages, see what houses O'Donnellan and Joyce have showing this weekend, arrange a viewing, and use the loos there. Brush your teeth, have a quick shower while the realtor is downstairs showing your partner the OFCH with a GSOH.
— Get onto MADRA and adopt a dog. For an hour each evening. Use dog to lick the dishes clean and save on dishwasher tablets and all the water used in machines and sinks. Down, Rover.
— Alternatively you could replace all your china with paper plates and plastic cutlery from the pound shops. Cheaper than washing. Who needs expensive delph now anyway that the Yanks have stopped visiting?
— Get a paint spray gun and paint your lawn green. This way you won't have to water it and it will look great all year round, even in frost. Remember, if the grass is greener on the other side, then their water bill is higher.
— Put on your iPhone to play a song for the duration of your shower. Find three-minute songs that when they end you get out of shower. Make sure you don't select Stairway to Heaven cos at eight minutes long, it will prob cost you a fiver for the shower. Or any sean nos song for that matter, cos they go on for days and are so called because they're normally sung through his nose by a guy called Sean.
So there you have a few ideas as we bid farewell to water as we knew it. Use the opportunity to have a good old fashioned dirty weekend for yourselves.
