Water

I'm not really sure when the whole water boom started. All I know is that when I was a kid, we'd go to the Diamond Shamrock gas station and purchase either Jolt cola, which had twice the caffeine of Mountain Dew, some orange Gatorade, or the largest fountain drink we could wrap one hand around and still use the other to steer our bikes. It never occurred to us to BUY a water. I'm not even sure they sold water in gas stations except for Evian which tasted to us like shampoo and melted ice cubes. And even if they did sell water, we had only mom's Taco Bell change that we'd taken from the center console of her car and we weren't going to spend it on something we could get from the faucet.

I'm not entirely certain when exactly gas stations began devoting valuable cooler real estate to bottled water....or entire aisles in the grocery store for that matter. I just know that at some point everybody caught on and nobody seemed to question that we were in fact purchasing the very same liquid that flows through every house in America (excluding select rural towns in Mississippi and northern Pennsylvania). I thought it was dumb at first. Give me a choice to buy a coke or bottled water and I'll take the coke and when the coke quenches my thirst and inevitably makes me thirsty again twenty minutes later, I'll either buy another coke or I'll find a drinking fountain. Bottled water was never invited into this equation.

Problem is, I, like other sheep slowly developed a curiosity for this new creation. It was different than other waters. It was purified...triple filtered mountain spring water hauled out in fine oak casks on the backs of scantily clad Peruvian women and aged to perfection. Yours for $.99 a bottle. I fought the urge. I tried. But then Eve pulled 12 ounces of blue Aquanfina perfection off that forbidden tree and I partook. It was fantastic. It tasted like hope. It tasted like water.

Soon enough, we'd all take the plunge. Bottled water became as vital to our lives as toilet paper and ketchup. And there were all kinds of it. Dasani became the Pepsi to the Coca-cola that was Aquafina. You had to choose. You couldn't have both. Water polygamy is not accepted. I went with team Aquafina because everyone knew that Dasani was just tap water, bottled by some guy named Lester who had a green patch over his eye and drove a panel van with a dented front fender and a bungee cord holding the hood down. Plus, he was a Detroit Lions' fan and nobody is a Detroit Lions' fan.

But then I discovered distilled water and it occurred to me that something was completely awry in this new liquid economy. There was a conspiracy going on right under our noses. Walk down any of the three water aisles in any grocery store and try to find the distilled water. I know. It only comes in a gallon and it's on the bottom shelf....next to the store brand diet strawberry soda. Who drinks store brand diet strawberry soda? Who drinks distilled water? You should. We all should. Something is wrong with America. Were you the piano upon which Paul McCartney wrote "Yesterday?" Were you in the room when the Broncos made the trade for John Elway? Have you tasted distilled water? Some things almost transcend....first man on the moon, the man or woman who invented the skirt/high heels combo, the wheel. Almost. Distilled water....transcends. Honestly, if given the choice between a top shelf Margarita and a glass of distilled water, I would choose the water three out of ten times. Do you realize what kind of victory that is for those mavericks in the trenches making this nectar of the gods?

Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Grant yourself this opportunity to experience new life apart from the confines of ordinary pedestrian bottled water. Start a revolution. Go distilled.