Chug-a-lug

Many years ago when I was just a young lad endeavoring to test myself on the athletic fields, one of the many rules was...not to drink water during practice. Yep, kiddies. That's right. Take salt tablets to retain water but no water to replenish your lost stores. That was the way of things. Some sports were not as dramatic but in football, that was the rule.

Now, in this day and age there has been an entirely new turn on how we water ourselves. We drag bottles of water all over God's creation. We take it shopping, driving, walking and virtually everywhere we go. You can't walk down the street without watching half the population chugging bottles of water. There are also an assortment of sports drinks and energy drinks to keep us from terminal dehydration. My question is, why?

Why do we drag all this water around? Are we afraid of spontaneous dehydration? Will we crumble and dry into a powdery residue if we don't have our pint bottle of hydro? Since when can we not walk four blocks or drive to the grocery store without a gallon of hydration? How many times have you come across someone who believes they ran the equivalent of a marathon by just walking across a parking lot? They take a deep breath, wipe the sweat off their brow and down the dew. The time has come to poke a hole in our bottles or leave them behind all together.

For some reason I can't imagine Beloved Father slurping on a water bottle all day long. A nip at a flask perhaps. It's time to free ourselves from the curse of dihydro-monoxide and regain the use of both hands.