I know there's about 500 discussions about this plant in these forums already, but my brains aren't working quite well enough to decipher which bits of advice I need to grab. :)

Bought a short, single Lucky Bamboo stalk for a dollar at the grocery store about a month ago. It was out of water for about 1 hr while I finished shopping. At home, stuck it in a glass with some tapwater (the fluoride, I know!! :-/ ) and it started turning yellow from the top down. After a few days, I replaced the tapwater with water from melted snow in the backyard, since I didn't have any distilled water on hand. The yellowing just got worse. Eventually I replaced that with some bottled water I found in the fridge (would that be what you all call spring water?) But now the yellowing has reached the bottom node, though the roots still seem to be doing ok, and I'm about ready to toss it and start over.

I don't want to buy another stalk just to have the same thing happen. Is it likely that the ongoing yellowing happened just because I didn't cut the dying part off? If I use spring or distilled water from the get-go, should it be ok?

There were three leaves at the top, two of which died early but the third leaf (with another young one curled up inside) is still green apart from the tip, which was dried & brown when I got it (hence the cheap price). Thinking that leaf was still going has been part of why I hesitated to cut down the stalk till now.

Had it in a south window for a while, then pulled back across the room out of direct sunlight, but I'm not sure how much either of these conditions may have played into its demise.

Grateful for any advice I can get! Thanks!!