Don't Drink the Water

I've been trying to cut down on the amount of soda that I drink this week. It isn't easy, because I'm pretty addicted to soda. I've never been tempted to take up smoking and I rarely drink alcohol, but when it comes to marijuana or Coca-Cola, I'm like Gator from Jungle Fever.

So anyway, I noticed the other week that I'm starting to develop a Fat Man Strut. You know how big fat guys, when they walk, they kind of lean back as they walk and swing their arms from side to side? Probably to compensate for their bulbous guts? Well, I've been overweight for a while now, I'm pretty used to it, but I don't want to be developing a Fat Man Strut (or FMS). I'm theorizing that once you go down that road, there ain't no going back. You never see thin guys walking that way...it's kind of the litmus test for lifelong obesity.

(Fat women have their own funny walk, that's almost inverted really. The Fat Lady Shuffle, or FLS. More on that in a future column, possibly, if I really get desperate for ways to goof on fat chicks.)

We have one immense guy who comes into the store with the most pronounced FMS I've ever seen. The guy can barely stand up on his own two feet, let alone move across a crowded retail aisle. Whenever he's near to a sturdy surface, he props himself up against it merely to remain aloft.

So, of course, what he needs is to sit around and watch a lot more movies, preferably whilst snacking on Flaming Hot Cheetos and Warm Mountain Dew. And that's where Team Laser Blazer comes in!

Anyway, despite my own personal weight problems to overcome, I refuse to ever ever be like this guy. So I'm trying to at least drink less soda and more water, just as a way to ease into a healthier life style without having to give up Flaming Hot Cheetos or Warm Mountain Dew. The latter of which, I can't grow up, because they're sponsoring my upcoming awards ceremony. (We've got several more nominations in, including Brett Ratner! And my friend Vineet told me to stop nominating politicans because it bores him!)

There are a few problems with this plan.

I can't drink the tap water in my apartment. The pipes are apparently filled with some sort of rust, causing the water to come out a shade of brown far too fecal in appearance for me to ever consider putting it in my body. I don't even like showering in the water that comes out of these pipes. Which is why I do so only once a week.

So every time I want to sip a cool drink, which is frequently considering that my room temperature hovers around 400 degrees in the afternoon, I need to go and purchase some bottled water. It is seriously that hot in here. I'm roasting a turkey on a rotating spit over my desk even as we speak. The gravy's simmering in my bottom drawer, where I kept my stapler before it melted.

And bottled water is idiotically expensive for something I should be able to access for free, if not for the plumbing in this building dating back to the Hoover Administration. It's ridiculous. That cave the Goonies fall into has more modern, better equipped facilities than my home. I went to Subway tonight (I know! Gag!) and a bottle of Dasani costs more than a bottle of Coke.

Now, explain this to me. Dasani is bottled by the Coca Cola Company at the same plant as Coca Cola. It contains merely one ingredient, water, whereas Coca Cola contains the following ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.

And while I'm on the subject, how can a product's ingredients include the modifier "and/or"? Which is it, Coca Cola Company? You make the stuff? You want to tell me you don't know? Either you put in high fructose corn syrup or sucrose or both. Only one can possibly be the correct answer, goddamit.

Okay, I feel better. My point is that Dasani sells to you, packaged, something Coca Cola gets for free. Tap water. Yes, for all of you who missed that episode of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" show, Dasani is just tap water recycled into bottled water and sold to you. It's something the public already pays for (water services) sold right back to them a second time.

I don't feel bad paying a buck or two for Coke, because it tastes good and they have to add stuff to water to make it into Coke. I'm not just buying it for the design - I really want a delicious caffeinated beverage. But Dasani...it's just water, you got it for free, it should cost like 10 cents!Not more than the drink with the complicated recipie and distincitve, brand-related flavor! What the hell is going on?

Also, I don't like drinking water because everyone else I work with drinks water and I get my bottles mixed up with theirs. Whereas, when I'm drinking Cherry Coke, I know I'm the only one doing so. Because I don't work with any 8 year olds.

Oh, yeah, and water doesn't taste like anything. But on the good side, I'm burping less, and some of my teeth are no longer in constant, excruciating pain. So I got that going for me...