Balls Deep

In the likely event you haven’t noticed, we here at the Slow Harbor Center for Liquid Analysis are sounding the alarm over the, um, alarming news stories pouring into our inbox. We get excited when something so complex as water makes the front pages of so-called “main stream media”, because at least one person usually wants our opinion as a Subject Matter Expert.

In this case, the alarm is because we’ve learned water levels at Lake Powell are at an all-time low. We assume this is a crisis, which isn’t something we assert lightly.

If you don’t know about Lake Powell, and let’s face it, you don’t, it’s a reservoir somewhere out West, like Utah, or maybe Nevada, which is like Utah only not. The lake was established in the 1960s and sits on the Colorado River, despite being in Utah or Nevada. It’s named after General Colin Powell, who by that point had a distinguished career spanning the Civil War and both world wars so far. Never one for golf, the general spent his retirement paddling up and down the river in wooden boats.

Recently, the lake's levels have dropped to a measly 3,519.91 feet, or just over 35 miles, which might sound like a lot until you realize that the lake supplies power to much of California, which has a lot of people in it, some of which are even human. Even scarier, the lake’s water levels have been declining for roughly 30 years.

And before you go off thinking, “Pfft, it’s a lake. It’ll rain eventually”, consider: this is far from the only instance in which we’ve seen declining levels lately. Take, for example, testosterone. We here at the Center would bet anything neither one of our readers knows that testosterone levels in U.S. males have been declining for, wait for it, roughly 30 years, just like the levels in Lake Powell.

We’ll give you a moment to think about that.

This means both water and testosterone levels have been, quote, disappearing on the same statistical timeline, both of which dramatically affect the lives of “humans” in California, and not in a good way. Coincidence? Please.

It gets worse. Apparently testosterone levels are half what they were 50 years ago. Half. Now, you may be asking, “But, what in the world has caused this? Is it something in the water?”

Of course not, you half-nut. Water has, on the surface, nothing to do with this precarious dip in male testosterone. In fact, according to the Cleveland Clinic, which is an authority on such things, despite being nowhere near Lake Powell, or even Colin so far as we know, there are several clear reasons, shown here in this highly scientific chart:

Reasons for sagging testosterone

• Weight
• No Exercise
• Light Beer
• Toxins
• Diet
• Lack of sleep

We know the chart above may be too complex for our reader, so we’ve translated for you: Young people have no testosterone because they are generally lazy, don’t exercise, spend all day and night gaming, smoking (or vaping) weed, and eating Doritos from Family Size bags. And it’s no stretch at all to point out how different things were when, say, Gen X was coming along. For example, back then they didn’t even make Family Size Doritos.

What these young men need is exercise and fresh air. The world, at least for now, isn’t entirely online; there are lots of actual people out there to meet and interact with, even in places like Utah. And funny things start to happen when we get outside. We feel better about ourselves, mentally and physically. Our outlook changes, and we start eating better, ditching the Doritos and Monster drinks for healthier foods and plenty of water.

Which of course is something we don’t have. And this is a generational trap we, as concerned citizens, are going to have to face sooner than later. The reason younger generations refuse to work might not be just because they’re lazy. It might also be that they feel the odds are stacked against them. And if Lake Powell runs dry, there’ll eventually be no water to drink that all that new exercise demands.

Fortunately, we are paid here to think “big picture”, so it won’t surprise you to know we are ready with a solution. The most obvious place to start, based on the graphic above, is, of course, light beer. We can leverage that and watch the entire thing shift from crisis to solved. First, we blast TikTok and YouTube with announcements that there’s a guys-only party on the shores of Lake Powell. Beer, snacks, and “other things” will be available at no cost thanks to your tax dollars. If we do it right, tens of thousands of guys will show up, and we’ll have lots of beer ready.

The trick is to take their keys, and, probably their cell phones now that we think about it. At the stroke of midnight, after an entire day of drinking light beer, we’ll let the guys do what they do: pee in the lake. Trust us on this one: not a single guy will choose not to pee in the lake. And what a sight that will be, as thousands of guys stand on the shore peeing, as one, into Lake Powell. By 12:03 A.M., the lake will, as though by divine intervention, be full once more. Testosterone will skyrocket from the manly act itself, and in no time a whole generation will be exercising, eating right, and drinking an abundance of new water.

Don’t thank us. We’re here to solve the world’s problems.