Spout.ly: October’s Sour Sips

This article is part of the Spout.ly Drinking Fountain Reviews series.

The changing season has also brought a change to the local drinking fountain rankings. With that in mind, Shaggy Butte's top sippers weigh in on the worst the city has to offer. Save your slurps for the best, and spare your parched lips from these blundering bubblers. -Spout.ly Senior Editor Chris Bluefield

Shaggy Butte Morgue

Top Comments:

"I've followed this fountain for many years. It used to be the only reason to visit the tire change place on Bannon Street, then it was sold and installed here. I had considered buying it up for my private collection in the past, but I'm glad I didn't. This bubbler has since gone sour, and hard. Button response time is a joke, and the spigot is so clogged you don't get more than acrid drops flowing out." -Swiftflow

"Came to identify a body. Noticed this fountain in the corner and decided to help myself. The experience was so awful it soured the rest of my day. There was mold all over the spigot, and a heavy buildup of hardened phlegm inside. I felt terrible knowing my son's corpse was sitting so close to such a miserable excuse for a fountain." -Wellspring

Cobb Pines Park

Top Comments:

"Uh, this drinking fountain is on fire. It's been on fire for several days now. You can't drink out of it without getting seriously burned. I guess it's because of all the natural gas venting through the ground? Bummer." -FountainClimber

"I tried to power sip this one, but the fire is just too strong. I ended up burning my palms and most of my lips. It's like a sign of the end times. There isn't a fountain in town I haven't tried except for this one, and I'm not giving up yet." -TepidPool

Brown Rusty Van

Top Comments:

"I applaud the idea, but this DF fails on every level. Somebody tried to apply the food truck model to a drinking fountain by installing one in the back of a rusty van. It drives around randomly and sometimes pulls over. The water had that distinct taste of being secondhand. Somebody had already drunk this water before, and spit it back. Huge violation of the DF community ethos." -HydraDad

"Spitting water back is fine in my book. I never swallow anything from a fountain. I'm strictly there for the taste, temperature, mechanics and artistry of a good fount. This one lacks all of that. The sip I got had an unreasonable amount of antifreeze in it. And the van started to move, causing me to swallow, something I've never before done in my 13 years as a DF connoisseur." -Aqueous

Shaggy Butte Meal Center

Top Comments:

"This place has no class. It's all bums asking you for change and trying to tell you long stories about how their families left them to rot on the streets. With all the guilt tripping and pestering, I'm starting to think this fountain isn't worth the hassle. For one thing, it tastes rancid and there are visible insects in the water." -Sodden Death

"The 'clientele' here are disgusting. Many of them are unclean and in serious need of a shower. Hello, idiots, you have a fountain. Use it to clean yourself up. It's how I keep clean. Just probably don't use this fountain, since it gave me a serious rash that is spreading fast." -Inflow

Shaggy Butte Public Library

Top Comments:

"What a terrible shame. First, funding for the fountain dries up and then they close the place down. What does it say about our community when they close the doors on its most precious resource? The fact the library fell into a giant sinkhole didn't help. I rappelled down to try the fountain, and let me tell you, it's all sulfur now. I'm used to a healthy dose of sulfur in the drinking water, but this is enough to damage internal organs." -Moist Man

"This is our community's version of 9/11. We had a profoundly good DF here, and then government mismanagement shut it down. The sinkhole and subsequent contamination only add insult to injury. I don't care about the books in the library, but the huge drop in quality that happened with this fountain is tragic and unforgivable." -Sipswell

– Josh "Livestock" Boruff (@Livestock)