Michael As you know, nothing annoys me more than standing in line for trivial things. Dinner at the trendy restaurant where people wait for hours for a table? Happens without me. Shopping on Sunday afternoon when Americans trample on each other in supermarkets? No way, I only show up 15 minutes before closing time, it's quicker then. Now you can surely imagine how thrilled I was with the absurd government regulations during the coronavirus crisis. Long lines formed in front of every supermarket like in the worst state-run mismanagement, and instead of buying Pellegrino once a month at our mega supermarket Costco, I had to look for new sources of sparkling water.

Now, tap water in America's big cities is heavily chlorinated, and that's why we've only used it for cooking so far. But just in time before the supply disruptions, I had ordered a Brita filter jug and a Sodastream sparkling water machine from Amazon. The activated carbon in the filter removes the chlorine from the water, supposedly also other contaminants, and after pressing the button on the sparkling water machine twice, we have pristine mineral water in glass bottles on the table. I was surprised at how good it tasted, and I'm not sure if we'll ever go back to Pellegrino.

Now the Sodastream crooks are making absurdly high profits with the carbon dioxide (CO2) bottles that need to be exchanged every month. The cartridges with 350g of CO2 for making sparkling water cost a whopping 30 dollars, and you get 15 dollars back as a deposit, but only if you buy more expensive CO2 from the Sodastream crooks; otherwise, the deposit is irretrievably lost. Obviously, this is a total rip-off, because a kilo of CO2 costs only about 2 dollars, which is something to think about! So, if you buy your CO2 for sparkling water as "Beverage Grade CO2" from a welding supply store, you pay only about 60 cents for the amount in a Sodastream rip-off cartridge instead of $30.

On YouTube, there are now numerous videos circulating on how to connect the bubble machine with its proprietory connector to regular CO2 gas cylinders from the welding shop, and Amazon already offers Hoses and Adapters for this purpose.

I ordered the hose right away despite the horrendous price of $90, even though you could probably build something similar for $20 with parts from the hardware store, but when it comes to pressurized gas, I'm rather conservative. Unfortunately, due to COVID, we are currently experiencing the added difficulty of a global CO2 shortage. The welding supply store in San Francisco is currently only selling to regular customers. But this too shall pass, and the CO2 will flow again, just wait and see!

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Haircuts At Home With Flowbee
  	Evening City Hikes
  	Standing in Line for Groceries
  	Dough from the telephone pole
  	Teddy bears in the window
  	Sewn masks
  	Open stores during Corona
  	Reckless joggers