You can keep the Wii. We don't need Guitar Hero III or a cell phone that shoots video, links to the Internet and brews hot coffee. And that pink-and-blue -- OK, salmon and teal --sweater? Don't bother. Please.

What we really want this season is the simplest thing imaginable: Water. Lots and lots of water.

The drought drags on, day after day, week after week, month after month. On those rare occasions when the sky does moisten a bit, people look skyward in wonder, trying to puzzle out this strange phenomenon.

For a stark picture of the situation we're facing, take a look at the reservoir storage and inflow graph on Orange Water and Sewer Authority's Web site (www.owasa.org). For about the first third of this year, the red line indicating reservoir levels is flat, up at the top of the chart, showing the reservoirs at 100 percent capacity. Then the red line falls off a cliff.

Down at the bottom of that downward plunge, that's where we are today. Tomorrow, in all likelihood, will be a little bit lower.

We did get a good soaking rain last weekend, prompting everyone to scrounge around for that long-unused umbrella. While the downpour lifted the heart, it didn't do much to lift the water levels in the reservoirs.

Just under an inch of rain fell Dec. 15. It raised the water level in Cane Creek Reservoir by three-quarters of an inch, and University Lake by one-quarter of an inch.

But all that really did was offset the weekend's water use; by Monday morning the lakes were 43.8 percent full -- exactly where they were before it started to rain two days earlier.

Since then, the downward slide has continued. As of Thursday morning, we were down to 43.3 percent full. That's about seven months' worth of water.

That's not much, although it's more than some of our neighbors have; Orange County, thanks in part to year-round conservation practices and good work by OWASA, is in better shape than some nearby areas.

But don't fool yourself. We're in a very serious situation. The reservoirs are low and dropping every day, and long-range forecasts call for continued dry weather.

OWASA recently approved contracts for a reclaimed water system, which will allow treated wastewater to be used for certain non-drinking uses on the UNC campus. When it's in place, the system is expected to reduce drinking water demand by an average of 600,000 gallons per day, which is about 25 percent of the university's overall water demand, and 7 percent of the entire community's. Eventually, OWASA says, the system could save up to 2 million gallons per day.

That long-range plan is welcome news; it should help us weather future droughts. It won't be in place before spring of 2009, though, and we have to get through the current one before that.

So it behooves all of us to stay on top of our water consumption.

Our water resources depend on two things: supply and demand. As individuals, we can't do a great deal about supply; the one thing none of us can do is make it rain. But we can all do something about demand.

At this writing, the five-day forecast says there's a chance of rain today and Tuesday. How does that song go? "I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas ..."