Tour de Force

Recently, our Administrative Specialist asked the Deputy Public Works Director to take her on a tour of our local waste water treatment plant (WWTP). I myself have been on three such tours and I can say without hesitation that if you're ever offered the opportunity to meander through a treatment plant, don't. Run away. If you're in an office, jump through a window. You'll be better off in the hospital, trust me.

They fool you, these WWTP operators. You walk in to the lobby or front office, and you see these banks of computers and fancy controls and buttons and lights and such and it all looks very Star-Trekky. Cool, you think. High tech is good. Then your guide will explain the process of water treatment to you. He'll use terms like "effluent" and "bio-solids" and "gray water". Nobody has a larger arsenal of euphemisms than a treatment guy.

After that, you'll leave the fancy room with the blinking lights and the pleasant-sounding terms. You'll go through a set of double doors.

The nightmare begins.

Your brain will do this: "...crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap..." You'll be led past conveyor belts with "bio-solids" whizzing by at high speeds. He tells you its on its way to a centrifuge or other similar machine where the "fluids" are extracted from the "solids". (...crapcrapcrapcrapcrap...) Then your mind will attempt to find coping mechanisms for the horror you're witnessing:
"...it'sjustdirtit'sjustdirtit'sjustdirt..." "!!!LOOKAWAYLOOKAWAY!!!" but your NOSE WON'T LET IT. The smell is like wearing a Honey Bucket on your head. You feel the need to shower, and you would strip naked right there on the tour if it meant you could. Because the image of that conveyor belt will be all you see when you close your eyes. All of that "bio-mass" travelling at high speed, probably aerosoling nicely, and most of it isn't yours.

Then he'll take you out of the Room of Nightmares and show you nice big cement ponds and tanks and explain how the by-product is used as fertilizer and here's the wetland we've created and aren't we bloody environmental. You'll barely remember this portion of the tour later. You will be, in fact, ruined. Damaged. Irrevocably corrupted, because now you know where it all goes. You've had to think about it. And you've seen it. He will still be using his fancy terms, and every time he does, you will want to yell at him, "Just say 'poo'!" The euphemisms will have no effect anymore. The only thing that would have ANY effect at that point would be removing your brain from your head and setting fire to it.

After my first tour, we were brought back to the room with all the pretty lights and computers, and he offered us some glasses of water. Water treated right there at that very plant. I might have drank some, but all I could see in my head when I looked at that glass was the conveyor belt.

I noticed he didn't drink any.