Insert Foot vs. the drought.

I saw a story last week saying, as California goes into year three of its historic drought (journalists are no longer allowed to just say “drought”) we idiotically used 18.9 percent more water in March 2022 than the previous March.

How is that even possible? Seriously … WTF is wrong with you?

The third year of a historic drought is, logically, worse than the second, which is worse than the first, and … screw it. Stop watering your stupid lawns.

This is indicative of something bigger, about which I’m not joking and hate to be the bearer of bad news, but …  we’re dumbfoundingly short-sighted.

Anyone checked those pesky and inconvenient COVID numbers lately? Oh yes it is, too, coming back, maybe mutated and angrier than ever. Because the human race no longer has the capability to learn from its mistakes or face reality.

I would ask if America still watches or reads real news, but I know better. But this is California. We don’t vote for Trump here (other than contrarians, farmers and megalomaniacal tech bullies). We’re supposed to know better.

They’re pulling people who pissed off the mafia last century out of Lake Mead every day, the water is that low. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a country where the mafia can’t find water deep enough to properly dispose of the bodies.

Reality no longer exists. We officially can’t handle it anymore.

That’s why no one dies in movies anymore. We have zombies and a “multiverse” in which they all come back. Because we can’t even handle fake death.

Zombies seem to be a preferred option. Because we’d rather embrace the idea of staggering about in brainless packs (insert your own Trump rally joke here), smelling like a truck bed full of rotten meat, chasing our friends and family around the countryside trying to eat them, than actually die.

The most recent Marvel movie, “Dr. Strange and the Confusing Plot of Super Dizzy Special Effects,” actually combined the multiverse and the zombie concept. I laughed out loud, either because of the ridiculousness or the absolute genius of it. Maybe both.

If “ER” was on in 2022, Mark Greene’s still-painful demise – about which I can’t even type 20 years later without breaking down into hysterics – would be absolutely ho-hum. The Hawaiian ukulele guy would be playing “Over the Rainbow,” and instead of everyone crying ourselves to death like in 2002, we’d be yawing, waiting for George Clooney to show up as a future caped hero in a spinning portal of flames from the “ER” multiverse with the cure for cancer.

We can’t even kill off or pick a Spider-Man anymore. So now we have 30, and at least one is a farm animal.

But back to reality, where a million American COVID deaths isn’t enough for a wide swath of the population to take it seriously enough to take measures to keep it from returning over year, like the holiday present your aunt forgets she bought you the past three years.

The water dilemma is similar, but different. People will ignore it, especially the wealthy, because the idea of water agencies threatening the well-off with higher rates simply doesn’t work. Gas prices are proving that.

Agencies can charge people all they want, but the simple fact is that water is disappearing in the West, and some scientists say that’s not going to change. This effects every living thing in most Western states, whether they believe science or not. We could stay home with Netflix and avoid COVID, but that’s not an option with water.

Especially terrifying was the report a few months back that the way we’re headed, there will be no Sierra snowpack in 30 years. Climate change is already here, has unpacked, and is excited to get to know the new neighbors.

So – and I’m talking to you, golfers – lawns will have to die. Yards will have to change. Water will have to be recycled. I spoke with a friend in the water industry, who said agencies are about to go all in on wastewater recycling, which sounds totally gross, but is cheaper and more environmentally-friendly than desalinization.

The California Coastal Commission just unanimously rejected a new desalinization plant in Huntington Beach (where, if I remember correctly, they allow oil rigs right off the coast) showing that’s going to be a tough fight, because of cost and environmental impacts. Plus it requires a tremendous amount of energy; another problem we’re about to discover as dams have less water to flow through the turbines, and inevitable brownouts will require us to turn down the AC.

Brace yourselves. And let’s do better than we did during the last crisis. Because this one could eventually affect even more people.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.