Scuttlebutt: orig: a cask or butt with an opening for a dipper. 1. nautical – a drinking fountain on shipboard  2. colloq. – rumor or gossip, such as might be passed at the water fountain or “scuttlebutt”

Do folk even gather around a water fountain any more?

Seems we are all busy with our filtered,

flavored, measured, vitamins added, self-cooling, straw attached jugs

to bother with a public fountain.

I have discovered though,

as I age (not as gracefully as some might hope)

and work with a decidedly younger group of co-workers that:

“scuttlebutt” definition #2 has reached an art-form in:

drama, drama, drama.

I could never have imagined how willingly folk

would be

to expose themselves

so openly on public forums.

Discretion and common sense no longer watchwords,

and more’s the sorrow…

’cause if you put it out there, someone, is going to find it…