Water rules

For the first time in my life I started drinking water with regularity. In the past I have always sampled such alternatives to healthy substances as Kool-Aid, coke, and non-water. When I started drinking water my friends all sold their worldly possessions and spent all the money in one great orgy of pleasure seeking. It is obvious the end of the world is here.
I did not start drinking water because it was trendy or fashionable. If you know me then you know that trendy and fashionable are examples of words seldom used about me. When they are used it is in the context of, “For an example of what is neither trendy nor fashionable, look at Drew.”
I also did not start drinking water for the health benefits. I have known about those benefits for years and simply never cared. I already plan to check out by 50 or 55 so health has never been a big concern. I prefer to enjoy my time on this wonderful planet we call all sorts of nasty names.
The real reason I started drinking water is because I am cheap. See, I got sick a couple weeks ago. Nothing tasted good. Well, some stuff did but if you were one of the people whom I told everything tasted like snot and you heard me say some things tasted good you might think poorly of me. So I told people everything tasted bad.
Now, I am a habitual soda drinker. As a general rule I consume 4 or 5 cans of pop every day. If you have not done your own shopping lately you might not realize this is every bit as expensive as your frappuccino habit. I once figured out that I work to pay taxes until March and I work to pay for my soda habit until August.
When I got sick, my soda habit tasted like everything else. I mentioned before that I am cheap. Actually, my good friends tell me I am frugal. I am sure that behind my back they use other, less family friendly words, but when I am around they simply admit I like a good bargain.
At work they provide free water. It is not the high-energy water or fruit flavored water that would make me trendy and popular with the hip crowd. It does not come in beautifully shaped bottles or have cool Super Bowl commercials. It does, however, have an old and famous name brand.
I cannot imagine drinking water that was not branded. That would be like paying reasonable prices for jeans instead of fifty bucks for Levis, or like getting a shirt for ten bucks when for only 65 dollars I can get the same thing with a little alligator below the shirt pocket. Fortunately this water is Culligan.
So now every morning I take my bottle to the Culligan water cooler as I enter the building in the morning and fill my clear blue water bottle with crisp, cold, clear, pasteurized, purified, naturalized, clean Culligan water and make my way to my desk. I pinch my face up like I did when Mom tried to make me eat spinach, put the bottle to my mouth, and swallow.
This has had unexpected results. Since the water is free and the soda costs money I have replaced my five cans of soda with five bottles of water. My intake of liquid has swelled from 60 ounces to 80. I have swelled up too. It is not just women who have water retention issues. Bodies that are discovering a strange new substance do the same thing.
Unfortunately, water does not have carbonation. It does not have artificial flavoring or coloring or any of the artificial preservatives that give soda a longer life expectancy than my grandchildren who have not been born yet. I am pretty sure that is why so much more soda stays inside of me.
Water just runs in one end and out the other. I have discovered many new things as I drink water. My frequent visits to the men’s room have taught me much about my system. When I drink soda there is seldom a need, but water seems to cleanse the system. You would be amazed what you discover.
First it cleansed the carbonation build-up. Sodas I drank a decade ago are revisiting. I think the carbonation molecules were stuck somewhere on the intestinal wall. They probably had a nice little home with little baby bubbles to keep them company. They were safe from any natural fluids because they were a part of me. Now the water has washed them away.
After the carbonation was gone the water started working on the colors. I am pretty sure my insides felt pretty manly with their Coke-colored walls, but the water cleansed them away. It looked like when the carwash cleans Uncle Jebediah’s muffler for the first time in 40 years. You know what I mean…rust chunks coloring the water that gushes out of the pipe after he sticks the garden hose up there. At first he insists he is going to keep the water going until the water runs clean, but after a couple hours he figures the lighter shade of rust is plenty good.
Water doesn’t give up in the human body, though. It gaffs every last particle of artificial coloring and leaves your intestines an almost sparkling pink. It is pretty impressive. It also feels pretty good the first time you see a clear stream and realize your body is cleaner than it has been for 30 years.
Of course, before that you see residue of all the gum you swallowed just to prove your mom wrong when she said, “Spit your gum out so it doesn’t stay in your stomach. That stuff doesn’t digest.” Clearly she was wrong. It wasn’t in my stomach at all. It was much lower than that.
If 2 weeks of water consumption can flush me like a city sanitation plant, imagine what would happen if I actually ate at regularly scheduled times or in reasonable portions. No, on second thought, don’t. If you thought about that you would probably have some advice for me. I don’t mean to demean your advice but I don’t have time to listen right now. I have to pee.