The city of Monroe is under a water emergency: headline at monroenews.com, chatter at monroetalks.com.

I was going to Kroger anyway at lunchtime, so I kept to those plans. One of the employees was quite pleased with the bottled water supplies he had set up in the aisle for a promotion that started today, and said to no one in particular “Do you think we have enough?”

I looked at him and said “Did you know the city has declared a water emergency?”

He didn’t know that. But when I asked where the “big jugs” of water were, he sent me in the right direction. I got a 2 1/2 gallon jug of water for $2.79. We already had a 3-gallon camping jug filled with water in our basement as part of our routine disaster preparations at home. I hope that’s enough water for now. I really dislike the idea of “buying” water when it’s perfectly drinkable from our tap.

Then again, … how long will that water last?

If you are in search of bottled water (cheap), I grabbed the sales fliers I had sitting next to my grocery list so I can point you in the right direction. Please add to this list via the comment section if you have any more resources to share. As luck would have it, I dumped a huge bag of newspapers and magazines down the recycling chute at the office this morning … which included all the sales fliers I didn’t plan to use this week.

I hope those of you who need bottled water today will find what you’re looking for!

• Kroger has a bundle promotion this week where, if you spend $25 in groceries, one of the promotions you can take advantage of is a 24-pack of individual serving size water bottles for $2.99, limit 3.
• Rite Aid has Poland spring water 1.5 liter and 3 liter bottles on sale. The listed price is 99 cents — I’m not sure which size that applies to.
• Walgreens has buy 2 at 99 cents, get 1 free on a gallon of drinking or distilled water, limit 3. There is also a coupon in the Walgreens flier for 2 for $5 on Pure American single serving bottles, limit 4.
• Meijer’s 10 for 10 sale this week includes six-packs of Meijer spring water.

There also are lots of other, umm, “beverages” on sale this week in Monroe-area grocery stores. Just remember that, when you don’t have running water, you don’t have a working toilet …