Aqueduct and Cover

There are seldom days when I don’t, for a few quiet seconds in the corner of a public place, among the plums and the plantains, weep for the gleeful desecration of the English language. Is it that I care about the language, holding onto arcane phrases like a good monger grips his catch? Not really. It’s that I wish deep down to be the prime desecrator, incinerating my mother tongue at the steep pyre of ritualistic cleanses.

With too many examples to recount here now, I’ve chosen a single phrase that speaks to the rising tide of cultural submergence. Observant New Yorkers, those who look up constantly, transfixed by a piece of broken scaffolding or the weird visage of a horridly unattractive gargoyle, would never dream of missing what I’m about to detail. To the casually blind and the socially inept, all cops patrolling the five boroughs are members of the NYPD. Given such a haughty preamble, you should know that this is obviously not the case. 

The people entrusted with protecting the city’s massive water supply system are known as the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police. DEP, for short. However, in the old days, they were known as the Aqueduct Police – that’s it. You’d have to be adamantly against clean water to prefer the new name for the Pont du guards.

Aqueduct Police require no acronym, no catchy title, no overblown classification. It says what it is, and thus it must wash away like the runoff from our highly polluted wetlands. But they changed the name to inure the public to the department’s incompetence. While people expect things from the Aqueduct cops, they count on very little from members of the DEP. Look around. The city, no the planet is filthy. And with all the protests abounding, who’s speaking out against this outrageous name change? Me? Anyone else you know of? Didn’t think so.

Everywhere I go I’m surrounded by plastic water bottles. We’ve really bought in, huh? The Bottle Boys and Big Agua have convinced us that water is best when sealed by a thin layer of smelly plastic. There’s nothing stopping you from carrying around an empty glass during a rainstorm for a couple of quick natural sips. Still fearful of acid rain? Is it any worse than the soda lining your fridge door?

It’s all just a drop in the bucket. Cheers.