Will I be ok?

While I was pouring myself a glass of water just now, I realized that that the filter had overstayed its welcome.  I knew this because the indicator thingy was blinking.

An aside - I never had a Brita that had the indicator thingy until about 6 months ago.  In college, I knew it was time to change the filter after each quarter was over because, conveniently, quarters are almost exactly three months.  Then I was volunteering in a special education classroom and poured some water and I gushed, “Wow, this Brita has an indicator, so you KNOW when to change the filter!”  The teacher looked at me like one of her mentally challenged students and said, “Yes!” as though I had just made a great achievement.

So the thing is telling me that the filter needs to be changed and I start to panic.  How long has the filter been like this?  How many rancid glasses of water have I consumed? because I drink a lot of water.  I noticed about a week ago that there was one bar left, but, but, but what if immediately after I noticed, it changed?  What if I have been drinking unproperly filtered water for a week?  Then I taste the water I just poured and convince myself that, yes indeed this water is gross.  It smells weird and has a gross after taste (aftertaste?  no).  I wonder how I wasn’t able to discern the rancidity of the water prior to the indicator telling me so.  What have I become?  What else has slipped past me?  Oh, man.

So I put in a new filter and “discard the first two fillings,” as the instructions indicate and discard the third just for good measure.  As evidence of my weirdness I don’t restart the timer until I am done with all the refilling and discarding, because I don’t want the timer to be inaccurate.  What?  Yeah, I know that didn’t make sense.