WHO says there's not enough water in Victoria? Who says we're running out? Because it's not true, it's not, we have TOO MUCH WATER, great expansive damfuls of the damn stuff, I have seen it, I have found it, up the back of every supermarket, 7-Eleven and milk bar in the state, stacked inside the refrigerated drink section: bottles and bottles of Pura Water, Ultra Water, Spring Water, Balance Water, Smart Water, Quench Water, Energy Water, H2Go Water, even something called XXX Vitamin Water, in the adults-only water section, in a sealed plastic sleeve.

My incredible drought-breaking water discovery was made just two days ago when I was stricken with an excruciating bout of thirst. I'd just completed an intensive afternoon abs work-out, gorging on 12 chicken and prawn dumplings that I'd bought from a dumpling shop because I really like dumplings and I also really like saying the word dumplings, it's my favourite thing to say aside from "labradoodle" and Indonesian President "Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono". So now I was painfully over-salined because I'd washed them down with a whole squirt-bottle of free soy and my tongue was permeating through the top of my mouth with osmotic suction. I needed water and I needed it FASSSSST so I ducked into the nearest milk bar, one of those quaint little Asian milk bars where you can buy squid candy and oolong cheese and little pink frocks for children's funerals but not a drop of milk. Scurrying to the back, I arrived at the refrigerated drink section only to be confronted with shelves and shelves and rows and rows of Splash Water, Black Label Water, Water-Rain, Cloud-Water, Guava Water, Water Revive, Mount Franklin Water, Vitamin Water, Enhanced Water, and something called Isotonic H30-Pro Sports Water, the colour and viscosity of amniotic Smurf goop. TOO MUCH WATER.

Dizzy with salt-hypertension, I froze before this great plastic-bottled Red Sea, overwhelmed by the choices, staging a whole National Water Commission in my head: Do I want Natural Water? Will it be as natural as the Organic Water? Do I go Fiji Water? Will it be tepid and tropical with kite-surfing breezes? Or do I support Australian and get the Outback Spirit Water, possibly flavoured with red dust and rank wild camels? What about the bottle of designer water with the amusing label blurb written by an ad copywriter who once did a comedy try-out night in the late '90s? It has the giggle-nutrients I so sorely need.

I had to grab something; sodium was crystallising inside my sinus cavity, boring holes through my mucous membrane. So I reached into that fridge and the water bottles parted with Moses-worthy dramatics and I emerged holding a single bottle: it was called Pump Water. Raising it aloft, I hurried to the milk bar woman and paid four bucks for it, FOUR BUCKS FOR SOMETHING I COULD LAP FROM A BIDET. It was a bargain. Then I got outside and didn't even bother popping up the little pop-top pump thingie — I UNSCREWED THE LID AND GUZZLED STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE. Socially abhorrent I know, but it was good, refreshing … for a moment.

Something was wrong: this water looked like water, it was clear like water, but if I wasn't very much mistaken, IT WAS FLAVOURED WITH INVISIBLE CHEMICAL LIME FLAVOUR, a combination of nanna's weak Coola cordial and Toilet Duck Double Action.

Back I raced into that milk bar, waving the pump bottle in front of the milk bar lady, my mouth so salty all I could make was a dry smacking sound like a toothless man gumming on penne. I said WATRRRRR PLEEEEEZ, and she nodded, led me to the tinned water chestnuts. No no, WATRRRRRRRR. She took me to a rack of plastic kiddies' toys, showed me a Bullseye Crimefighter Water Pistol from the 1960s. WATRRRRRRRRRRRRR. She understood and got me a glass of water from the tap in her back room. Cool, clear water.

Victorian people, let us dump all the bottled water into the dams and we will never have a water shortage again. Except for the lime-flavoured pump water — we can just use that for grey water and toilet flushing.