After a short break, I continue my summerlong dialectic on evil and stuff that sucks. This week I urge all to renounce the demon in refreshing, thirst-quenching colors, that crystal clear icon of health, that most bizarre of all status symbols and waste of resources: bottled water.

While visiting friends in Iowa City, I accidentally sucked down some tap water. My tongue began to tingle, and I swear I saw spots. I never made that mistake again. I ran down to the 50-year-old, one pump Shell station on Van Buren, which sold nothing but gas, oil and Evian water, and scored me a big old bottle.

This is the exception to the rule. Some places have stinky water, but for the rest of us, the following words strictly apply.

I guarantee that half the people who read these words do so with one of those kitschy, cool brands of expensive “spring” water dangling from a delicate paw.

Not since individually wrapped slices of American cheese singles has a more ridiculous product forced its way into the American collective list of ludicrous essentials.

Normally, I don’t just like to call people stupid, giggle and run off to do a movie review or interview the next up-and-coming pop sensation as is my wont. No, when I use epithets like “stupid,” “ignorant,” “Nazi” or “cracker,” I like to back it up with a few fancy facts and some stone cold logic. Bottled water can be easily denounced from a position of superior logic, or from a ranting low-brow angle.

First, the low-brow rant. Evian spelled backwards is naive and if you think this is just a coincidence, I guarantee that if you go to Ville d’Evian, France, you will find the people there bilking tourists for as much money as they can.

“Ooh, look at me and my tragically hip bottle of water. It looks so cool in its specially designed, fishnet carry pouch on my Euro-trash backpack. I must be rich to afford so many non-essential do-dads and goo-gaws. Is that my cell phone? I better take this, it could be my broker … Hi, Mom!”

Get over it. Drink out of a fountain like a normal human being for the love of god. Throwing money down the drain on something you’re just going to pee away in an hour … ridiculous! You make baby Jesus weep!

Now for the sound reason portion with just a little dash of bile thrown in to keep the masses happy. Evian, along with Perrier, may be one of the more valid exceptions to the bottled water scam, though. At least it comes from a hip spring in France.

And I will grant that mineral water has some legitimate function, but the average bottled water product comes with no real guarantee of purity or special health benefit. The industry is not regulated. You are paying a buck or two for water that came out of a tap just the way yours does.

And for those who live in Ames, your water comes out of the tap cleaner and better tasting than most of the country’s water. And if you are very desperate to get rid of any tell-tale taste of chlorine or fluoride, there are always water filters on the market that do the job at a fraction of the cost.

But let’s face it, the average hipster who shells out cash to sip water from a clever package is doing it more for the bottle than the water it contains.

Honestly, how many people investigate their bottled water choices? They see Dasani and Aquafina, slap those bills down on the counter proudly and walk away, never concerned that it is brought to them by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, respectively.

Do either of these companies have a reputation for providing the public with healthy choices? They want their share of a market you have created for no good reason. Conversely, more and more people get on the bottled-water band wagon every year, thus increasing the size of this market.

The bigger the market gets, the more brands of bottled water that come out and more people start to think there must be some legitimate reason for them to start drinking bottled water. In a recent survey from the National Resources Defense Council on the nation’s drinking water, 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water in the United States does not have to conform to any FDA guidelines because it is bottled and sold within one state. Do you think the bottled water companies are unaware of this?

The study (www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.aspexamined) examined 1,000 bottles of 103 brands and found that most of the water was of high quality, but some of the brands were actually contaminated. Not just one or two flukes, but one-third.

One out of three contained some level of actual, true-to-life contaminants: synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria and arsenic. Considering you are paying for purity, any amount is too much, right? One sample actually exceeded the legal limits set by the state and the industry itself.

There is one source of water you can use that is actually tested under standards that are much more rigorous than any bottled water. Can you guess what that source is? Bingo, chief, your city water supply.

Your city hires people whose job it is to be accountable to the public for clean water and they take that job seriously. They aren’t in it for profit and if you can think of anyone who would want to bribe them to allow our drinking water to be contaminated, feel free to tell me.

When it comes to bacteria, large cities test water hundreds of times per month compared to once per week for bottle water.

Cities test for synthetic and organic chemicals four times a year compared to bottled water’s one whole time a year. And when it comes to testing for E. Coli, Fecal Coliform, Cryptosporidium, Giardia and Viruses, you can count bottled water out completely, but not your big cities.

There is this assumption that your bottled water is somehow pristine and unusually clean. One particularly nasty brand called “Spring Water” actually came from an industrial parking lot next to a hazardous waste site.

No one is really making sure you aren’t swallowing the worst swill in the world.

Ready for another shocker? Anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of bottled water is just bottled tap water … suckers.

So when I call you stupid for drinking bottled water, try to remember, I do so out of love because if you think you are doing yourself a favor sucking down gallons of water a year at the tune of $1.69 for 20 ounces, think again.

Not only can you save money drinking from the tap, you can actually save your health.

Now, if you live in Iowa City, that’s another story.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily. This column is dedicated to Wendy, because I KNOW she gets it.