H2 Woes

“What is this stuff, Rene?”
“I grew up on this. It’s my family label.”

For all of the 18 months I’ve been working at Generation Marketing, the company has always provided an impressive selection of soft drinks in the kitchen. I don’t really go for soda pop(inski) ALL of the time—I’ve got too much of a dietary conscience for that—so I’ve come to rely on the “Mount Olympus” water cooler in the break room to fill all my daily hydration needs.

The Mount Olympus spring is located southeast of Salt Lake City at the 5,000 foot level of Neff’s Canyon, a protected source surrounded by a federally designated wilderness area. Its quality is very uniform, and there is no chlorine, harsh chemicals or impurities to alter the pristine taste of Mount Olympus Spring Water. In fact, more than fifty years of water analyses indicate no discernible change in the quality or mineral composition of the water.

The Mount Olympus water dispenser was one of those top-loading types—the kind with a standard, up-side-down five-gallon jug on top, and an internal cooling system. And the patented Mount Olympus taste was cool, refreshing, and clean. Imagine the crisp waters of a secluded alpine spring, void of the taste contaminants so commonly found in valley waters. Mount Olympus water was like a winter day’s clear blue sky in liquid form.

“WAS” is the opperative word here! As of last Friday, Generation Marketing is no longer a Mount Olympus company. In a shrewd self-promotion plan, the former president of Generation Marketing bought cases and cases of personalized “GEN-M” waterbottles. We’ve got so many that theres a storage unit full of the stuff. Well, the new president of the company has decided that until we drink up all the Gen-M water, we won’t be buying any more Mount Olympus water.

“Kinda tastey, aint it?”
“It’d grow pink whiskers on a hound dog!”

Makes sence, right? I mean, why buy water when you’ve already got a truckload of it? I’ll tell you why: because that water in those truckloads tastes like toilet water! Coming from the great Northwest and serving my mission in Lake Tahoe, I understand that I hold all my water drinking experiences up to a very high standard of excellence, and for that reason, I won’t go into how bad the local tap water is (yet). But this stuff is bottled water—with bottled water you expect it to taste good, because that's what you've paid for.

“Yup, good ol' Canada. They don't [care if their water tastes bad]

because they're too busy playin' hockey or

gettin' drunk or puttin' maple syrup on their ham.”

Except, THIS water comes from Canada through the Norwood Promotional Products Distribution Company. It tastes WORSE than the local tap water, it tastes more like what you’d expect if you poured a glass of local tap water and let it sit and go stale for about a month. I don’t know what idiot thought it would be a good idea to sell Canadian water in the U.S, but I do know what idiot bought the stuff… and thankfully he doesn’t work here anymore.

“I pray to Shiva, '[bring better water].' But [he does] not.

Now, now the evil of Kali take me.”

“How?”

“They will make me drink [nasty Canadian water].

Then I fall into black sleep of Kali Ma...”

“What is that?”

“You become like them. You’ll be alive, but like in nightmare.

You drink the [nasty Canadian water], you not wake up from nightmare.”

So the standing policy is that until all the bottled Gen-M water is gone, we won’t be buying the delicious Mount Olympus water. And as much as I hate that Canadian hydration, I’d be willing to drink it, seeing as how doing so would be advancing the cause toward a greater good. The first day they announced this new policy, I decided to drink as many bottles per day as I could, hoping to speed up the process of exhausting our Gen-M water supply.

“Well, let’s start with a batch of toxic waste from your “clean” textile plant. There’s a hole lagoon of this crud in the back.”

However, even that plan isn’t without its obstacles. I drank every bottle I could find in the office. I think by the end of the day there were about 10 empty bottles in my waste basket. But now that the entire in-office supply is gone, they say there’s a whole storage unit full of it that also must be drank. Only, none of them have taken the time to go out to the storage facility to pick it up, so now I’m stuck drinking plain old tap water.

“It tastes funny.”
“It does not. It's just tap water.
Besides, he licks his butt every day, I don't think he'll mind.”

Maybe the decision makers here don’t drink that much water, or maybe they “lick their butts every day” and can’t tell the difference, but I do mind because I drink a ton of water every day. I don’t particularly enjoy water—even the clean Mount Olympus stuff. But I’m such a snacker (it’s like a smoker, only instead of going through packs of cigarettes each day, you go through packs of fun-size candy bars), that my mouth has developed a very short attention span and almost constantly needs to have something to keep it busy. All I do is sit at my desk all day, so I really can’t afford to collect the quantity of calories that come with a constant consumption of confections. Water is a perfect solution to my situation. Just look at the Nutrition Facts on the label—zero everything. And decent water also has zero flavor, but both Canadian and tap water have way more taste than the recommended daily value.

“What’s that?”
“Antidote.”
“To what?”
“The poison you just drank, Dr. Jones.”

Now, don’t think that I’m so particular about my water that I’m this picky at home. I’m too cheap to buy bottled water, so I drink from the tap all the time. Despite that, I still haven’t learned to tolerate the taste, but I have discovered an antidote to its nastyness (and let me take this time to reiterate that nearly all my references to “nasty” in this post are really just an exaggerated description of water which tastes less than pure, but I want to clarify that I’m not forced to drink from a septic tank. On a scale of 1-10, with Mount Olympus water being a 10, the Gen-M and tap water both merit an 8 or so). That antidote is Crystal Light.

“Anyone who wants to be a can't-hack-it pantywaist
who wears their mama's bra, raise your hand.”
“Yeah, I can live with that.”

Okay, I know that Crystal Light seems to market mostly to women, so I can see how you my think me a pansy for liking the stuff, but hear me out. 1.) Its delicious! My favorite flavors include Strawberry-Kiwi, Ruby Red Grapefruit, and Raspberry Ice. Each flavor is bold enough to mask the murkiest, blandest water, yet none are so overpoweringly sweet to make you feel like you're drinking slurpee syrup. B.) It’s calorie conscious: at only five calories per serving, it’s a way better craving suppressant than even rice cakes—which tally in at about 20 calories per serving. And, D.) Its relatively inexpensive: five dollars will buy you enough flavor dust to mix 10 liters of deliciousness—you’d have to wait for a blue light special to find even SODA POP that cheap.

I guess I’m not really sure what the moral of this whole story is, but I will say this, if you’ve never had Crystal Light, or if its been a while, or if you’re trying to cut caloric corners without forsaking flavor, go out and buy yourself a couple of tubes of Crystal Light. It’s like Kool-Aid for grown-ups. “Oh yeah!”