You Won’t Know – Do It Anyway

I was flipping channels, and I stopped on a little girl explaining her science project. She wanted to assist water conservation. Specifically, she wanted to make her fellow and sister elementary school students aware of water use. She had the idea to tell them, whenever a faucet was running, to make a noise in their heads. “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she said demonstrating. Associating this noise with a running faucet would make them remember water was running and being wasted.
This was years ago. Maybe ten years ago. Maybe longer.
Still, whenever I hear a faucet running, I hear “Shhhhhhhhhhh.” I use two hands to brush my teeth so I can turn the water on and off as needed because I cannot tolerate the “Shhhhhhhhh” in my head while the water is running. I never let the water run while I’m washing my face because I hear in my head, “Shhhhhhhhh.” I fill the kitchen sink with water to wash dishes because, if the faucet is running, I hear, “Shhhhhhhhhhh.”
This child has no idea the impact she has had on my water use.
She will never know the impact she had.
But she had it.

here’s to creative synthesis . . .