In this life there are certain things we as humans need: Clean air to breathe, Sparkling water to drink, Wholesome food to eat, and a great mechanic with good prices to keep our cars going. Remember, when I say sparkling water, I mean that it sparkles when the sun hits it as it flows down a river. Not the crap, they sell in the store with tiny bubbles in it, that come in a bunch of unnatural flavors. That stuff is terrible! I got some free one time and couldn’t drink it. The taste really sucked. It was supposed to be Pomegranate/ Kiwi, but tasted more like Poison Ivy/ Sandstone. Yuck!!

The stuff was bad. Not Hip-Hop Music Bad, because that Bad is actually good, which makes no sense at all, but now is not the time to figure that out so I’ll just move along. This was the bad kind of Bad that you might hear from your mother when you don’t call every week. Actually, Bad is really not a strong enough word. It redefined Bad into whole new Bad realms of Badness, which in itself was Bad. Then those Bad bubbles hit my tongue and a Bad chemical process converted the Badness into a Bad version of being Super Bad causing a Bad cloud to create a Badness cocoon, sending me, body and soul, into the Bad realm of Bad-Topia. Well, Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that bad, but it certainly wasn’t good.

It makes me wonder how that kind of stuff make it into so many the stores and with so many brands. I mean water is water. It has very little taste, but is quite refreshing and it goes down easy on a hot day. Ahhhh! Sadly, people can’t leave perfection alone. They spend years and millions of dollars trying to improve water, and it’s been going on for centuries. When primitive man migrated out of Africa and experienced Winter for the first time. They wrapped themselves in fur and gathered Ice. Putting it into glasses of water they sighed and said nothing. Language hadn’t been invented yet. However, they grunted and growled some, but if it had they would have exclaimed, “Now, this is good.” The first attempt at making water better.

After that it was a race to find anything and everything to improve water. The Chinese mixed in dry leaves and called it tea. Some ancient dude named Kaldi, in Ethiopia around 750AD threw beans in his hot water one morning, as a mistake, because he was having trouble getting going. Folks have been waking up to his coffee ever since. Egyptians put lemons in water. When they didn’t like it, they added honey. Now carnival operators around the world call the stuff lemonade and charge five-bucks a glass for what is essentially flavored water. Capitalism is wonderful.

These were successes, but when folks fail, they never say, “Hey, I guess water is good enough the way it is.” Oh No! Today there are a bunch of companies trying to figure how much flavor is the right amount to put in their water. Some stick with none and add minerals to make it natural. Natural? They pull it out of the lake, kill all the bacteria, purify it, distill it, deionize it, then add salts and rocks, boil it until those things are absorbed, finally add carbon-dioxide so it has tiny bubbles. put it in non-recyclable containers, and call it ALL-Natural. After all the processing there’s nothing Natural about it.

Then there’s the company who failed at flavoring water. Now after I fail at something I reevaluate and move on, feeling good that I tried. They didn’t. After five attempts at making water better, which by the way is something you can’t do, they had a meeting. How it happened, I have no clue, but the result was alcohol-infused flavored water. Yes folks, now not only can you be high on life, but you can get blasted on water. I can just see the traffic stop of the future. “Honest O,Ossifer, yes, I was at a party, WooHoo, but I, I, I, swear, (hic) I only drank water.” Yea that’s going to fly.

Then imagine the call back to dispatch. “We have a drunk driver at the corner of First and Elm. We’re bringing him in.”

“Did you search the car?”

“That’s affirmative. We found several open cans of water and two more closed. We suspect that Mr. Jones was going to continue drinking water while driving.”

“Uh Bob, did you have too many donuts this evening? Water isn’t illegal”

I don’t have to tell you how confusing this exchange is going to get and frankly it’ll never make sense to me, and my mind is warped.

 Then there’s the athletes. Those folks train all day and sweat like nobody’s business. I don’t understand this at all. Exercise is good. I participate in physical activity at least once a month and I feel great. Athletes move and stress and sweat every day and feel tired, achy, and miserable, dealing with injuries and muscle strains. Sure, they’re strong and could beat me up for saying it, but with all the pain they go through, I can just step aside and watch them in their agony. Those folks say water isn’t good enough for working out. They need freshly-squeezed alligator juice, you know Gator-Ade.

Actually, I know that the stuff isn’t made from gators, it’s sugar, salt, artificial flavors, preservatives and of course water. My doctor tells me to avoid all that stuff. except for the water. So, in the wisdom of Hippocrates, how do they think it’s healthy for people doing strenuous exercise? It would probably be better for you if it was made from alligators. The stuff would be high in protein and Omega-3’s, low in cholesterol, and nobody would use it as a replacement for water. Other than my cousin Mike. He’s kind of strange. I could easily see him confusing alligator juice for water, but nobody else.  Again, the world doesn’t make sense.

Of course, of all the water deniers and changers, you will never top Mr. John Stith Pemberton. If you don’t know who he was, Great, I know something you don’t know. I guess I’ll tell you just to keep this story flowing, but in my heart I’m gloating. John was an American Civil War veteran who decided that the thing water needed most was cocaine. Yes folks, Mr. Pemberton invented Coca Cola.

I guess if alcohol is good cocaine must be better. The thing is John was way ahead of his time. He did all this in 1888, alcohol infusion didn’t happen till 2017. Back then I would have thought folks would have enjoyed just having water and not what it tasted like or getting buzzed. I’m sure there are noted scholars looking into this as we speak.

To me water is water. It is important for life as we know it and frankly, humans and animals shouldn’t drink anything else. Thank goodness for pure, clean water sent from heaven.

To celebrate this great creation, I think I’ll have a beer