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May 13, 2008
Experiment: Day Nine
This one is going to seem really simple. And I guess it is. Isn't that the point of this experiment to some extent anyway?
My favorite beverage is water. Yup. H2O. I love it, I love it, I love it. Drink nearly a gallon of it a day.
I grew up a Coca-Cola child (and still have stock in the company, thankyouverymuch), in a household where my mother would drink a can of Tab (and, come the '80s, a can of Diet Coke) twice each day. The diet stuff always gave me a migraine, so I would occasionally have a Coke or a Sprite or a Fanta or a Dr Pepper or a Fresca... but it was never a daily habit.
Until I started working at the Drug Emporium on Roswell Rd. in Sandy Springs.
I lied on my work permit to get a job before I was legally old enough to do so and then, before I was legally old enough to earn a promotion to Head Cashier, I got "in" that door too. That meant I spent hours in a tiny room off the front of the store, counting tens of thousands of dollars, wrapping coins, binding bills, and balancing my employees' tills. I don't remember my direct coworkers' names, but one was a petite squeaky blonde white chick and another was a robust loud funny black chick and both chain smoked and drank sodas like there was no tomorrow.
So, within a few months of starting this job, I began to associate piles and piles of money with the stench of ciggies and the taste of sugary, syrupy soft drinks.
When I quit that job to begin work as an academic tutor in my junior year of high school, I noticed that whenever I would sip a soda, it would "taste" like that memory. And I didn't like it. It's not that I disliked the job... it's that sharing a tiny room with two adult chain smokers when you're 15 and healthy is something that feels weird at some point. Anyway, I decided, officially, to "go on water" at that point.
And outside of my regular beloved Ciroc Gimlets and occasional glasses of wine and champagne or other cocktails, water is pretty much all you'll ever see me drink. I have perhaps three cups of hot tea per year. Never coffee. Never soda unless I'm just really craving one and even then, it's a quick hit.
I will never be in my car without a bottle of water. I will never be at my desk without a bottle of water. I will never be at a speaking engagement without a bottle of water. I freeze 'em, half full, so that it's like I'm drinking ice water (because I do prefer my water with TONS of ice). Of course, with kitties that love to scurry and a workspace covered in paperwork and computers, "ice water" in a nice glass with a wedge of lemon is a bad idea. *sigh* The things we do to adapt to our critters' needs to play.
Anyway, I love water. And I love that I live in a community that spends a great deal of energy keeping its tap water clean. Yup! In Santa Monica, you can drink water right out of the tap, which I love, love, love to do. It's some of the cleanest water going. :) And that makes me very happy.
See? Toldja. Simple.
Day Nine:
I am grateful for water.
(What is the Experiment? It is this.)
Posted by bonnie at May 13, 2008 8:04 AM