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POLAND, MAINE - During the summer, convenience-store owners in southern Maine live by one rule: Liquids reign.

To understand why, look no farther than the corner of Maine Street and Spring Water Road, where dust-covered SUVs and minivans roll into the parking lot of the Village Kitchen. Here, fathers pump gasoline outside while mothers and children duck into the store and emerge minutes later with arms full of bottled beverages, often water.

Water is particularly popular in this town, since it's home to Poland Spring, the best-selling bottled spring water in the United States.

But customers who take a close look at their receipts may note a curious fact: The water costs more than the gasoline.

At the Village Kitchen, just a few miles from the water's source, a gallon of Poland Spring sells for $1.61 including taxes; one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline costs $1.39, with taxes.

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Inexpensive filters also do wonders for the taste of tap water, and is probably better than my boiling method.

P.T. Barnum would be proud of today's bottled water sellers, I think.

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Inexpensive filters also do wonders for the taste of tap water, and is probably better than my boiling method.

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Vancouver has great tap water, so we were a bit shocked by the noticeable chlorine taste in Calgary. Water's on the hard side here too, but that's less noticeable. We immediately got a Brita filter jug, which took care of the chlorine taste.

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I can longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist perversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

"General Jack Ripper" in Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

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