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Hydration Nation
We have swapped the garden hose for NASA-level ‘drinkware’ in every cabinet — and still can’t quench our thirst.
I’ve reached the age where I start too many sentences with, “When I was a kid…” Even I want to punch me. Yet when I see my grown daughter sip water all day from a $45 Stanley Quencher the size of a fire extinguisher, I can’t help myself. When I was a kid, we hydrated from the hose.
My parents used to go on about walking two miles to school uphill both ways in the driving rain, treating hand-me-downs like heirlooms, and going to the movies for a quarter. None of it impressed me. That was ancient history. Dinosaurs still roamed the playground. Seven kids? You better believe second-hand slacks were precious — even if they didn’t fit. In fact, better if they didn’t fit. That’s how Mom amortized the sewing machine.
Why would my tales of drinking bug-infused hose water impress my kids? My youth is their Mesozoic Era, every bit as unrelatable as my mom and dad going to see Gone with the Wind at the Hi-Pointe for 25 cents.
And yet, I want points.
No one stood there longing for chilled glacial spring water with notes of cucumber and pretense.
When I was a kid (yep, again), we’d spend scorching afternoons in the woods…