I'm watching Ask This Old House, and they're replacing
a water softener. Actually, they're using the old tank
but replacing the head and the resin beads. As they were
dumping out the old beads, there was all this black muck
at the bottom of the tank. They didn't comment on that.
I'd hate to think of my drinking water passing through
that crap.

When I was a kid, a friend of mine across the street
had a water softener at his house. I always thought
the water tasted terrible over there. Borderline
undrinkable.