Seriously, has it come to this? Now we have to resort to fountain drink station sleuthing to figure out whether our local fast food restaurant is lying to us? Nathan used his knowledge of drink machine buttonry to figure out that the machine does indeed offer up plain municipal water. The “water” button has been colored black with a marker, however, to help it blend in with the machine.

Back in November, I went to a Taco Bell in the Towne Center mall in Marietta, GA. When I was at the register I noticed a sign telling me that they didn’t have any water in their drink machine but, never fear, there were water bottles available for purchase at the register.

I was skeptical of this because they served fruit punch or lemonade at the machine, and most drink machines have both a switch for carbonated water (under one of the sodas) and a switch for water (under one of the fruit drinks). When I looked at the fruit drink, I noticed there was a button on the front of it that curiously looked like it had been colored over with a black sharpee to match the color of the machine. Sure enough, when I pushed the “invisible” button, out came a glorious waterfall.

I know there’s no law about something like this, but… is there?

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