1) Ignore it.

2) Ignore it some more.

3) Governor boldly demands: Turn off the water when brushing your teeth! Save a gallon a day!

4) Less than a week later, governor calls on North Carolinians to cut personal water use in half.

Who'd have thought I'd be nagging my boys not to flush? Who knew my 4-year-old who screams at being bathed once a week would turn out to be a civic model?

Unfortunately, our halvesies test only lasts until Halloween. That's a week away -- and the drought is supposed to last into the foreseeable future.

Most of us out here suffering dry mouth from local restrictions are wondering when the state is going to follow suit with a long-range plan including mandatory restrictions and appropriate penalties.

Still, as hesitant as the state seems to have been to jump on the drought bandwagon, the governor has succeeded in the most important first step in a successful conservation campaign: getting people talking it.

In other states, that took a lot more than a news conference. Of course, the results had a bit more punch than "Operation Halve It."

In Denver, the water board has spent more than a half million dollars in recent years for slogans such as:

"Brush every other tooth."

"Sing shorter songs in the shower."

"Real men dry shave."

"Instead of washing clothes, don't wear any." (Now wouldn't that have been a nice one in August?)

And my personal favorite: "Only wash the stinky parts."

In Australia, the environmental ministry offered a few choice ones, too.

"Drink more wine."

"Have your teenagers move out."

And the inimitable "Shower with a friend."

That might not resonate here in the Bible Belt. But as one Australian woman wrote me, the "friend" at her house is blue and holds about a gallon of excess water.

It's a bucket.

In San Diego, public officials actually created a water conservation mascot named Waterhog.

Los Angeles paid $2.5 million for an ad campaign that featured a sendup of the shower scene from the Hitchcock movie Psycho. It ends with the sound of a woman shrieking -- over an astronomical water bill.

Clever, eh? But it also points to one strategy we haven't deployed to reduce water usage: Raise the rates. In one California county, folks using more than 50 gallons a day (enough for about two five-minute showers a day) are charged a hefty fee.

Currently, in North Carolina the opposite is true. We're encouraged to conserve, but as any business will tell you, the more water you use, the bigger the price break you receive.

As long as we're being so careful brushing, let's go ahead and bare some teeth against the water-wasters.

There's nothing like consequences to encourage good civic behavior.

If only the most common-sense conservation strategy were enough: "Only use what you need."

I have, and I'm done.