Taking a Left at Albuquerque: Adventures in Hating Water (and Finding a Balance)
If we’re going to talk about staying hydrated out here where the air is thinner than a politician's promise, we might as well take a left at Albuquerque and get some things straight.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: plain water is an absolute scam. People love to look you dead in the eye and claim, "Water doesn't have a taste." To which I say, check your taste buds, because water definitely has a taste, and more often than not, it tastes like nothing good. It tastes like infrastructure. It tastes like whatever pipe it just traveled through. It is not my jam, and you know what? It doesn't have to be. It isn't written in stone anywhere that we are legally required to enjoy the flavor of hydrogen and oxygen pretending to be a beverage.
Add in the fact that every time you drink a glass of water, your body immediately demands a return trip to the restroom. In my brain, peeing is a personal insult—an aggressive interruption of my day that requires precious minutes I simply do not have to spare. This leads to Olympic-level pee dancing because I'm trying to hold out, or waking up two or three times in the middle of the night wondering why I'm punishing myself. Subconsciously, the constant bathroom marathon has given me deeply bad juju about drinking water in the first place.
Of course, we try to do the right thing. We carry around our emotional support water bottles everywhere we go—whether we're hitting a gas station, a movie theater, or anywhere else—opting for a cup of water to dump into our reusable bottles rather than contributing to the plastic wasteland. But let's be honest, that water isn't going down solo. It requires a little bit of joozh. Enter Mio. A squirt of Mio transforms the existential dread of drinking plain water into something actually palatable.
Yet, the wellness industry still hovers over us with that magic number: 64 ounces. Or worse, the modern rule based on your body weight. When you hear numbers like that, your mind immediately visualizes an astronomical, swimming-pool-sized amount of liquid. You look at it and think, Why even try? Guzzling 64 ounces sounds like a form of medieval torture.
Then, life happens. Specifically, you have to do a colonoscopy prep.
If you want a reality check on volume, go through a medical prep where you are instructed to drink eight ounces of liquid, rest, and repeat. Suddenly, a revelation hits you: Eight ounces is tiny. It is nothing. In our daily lives, we pull a random mug or tumbler out of the cupboard that holds 16, 24, or 30 ounces, completely losing sight of what a standard serving actually looks like. It also makes you uncomfortably aware of how easily you can knock back three massive cups of coffee without blinking, while a single glass of water feels like climbing Everest.
Do I magically drink 64 ounces of pure, unadulterated water a day now? Absolutely not. But that colonoscopy trial by fire cured my warped perspective. I realized I don't need to conquer an ocean; I just need to conquer a cup. I can suck down eight ounces right now.
I might still need my Mio to make it happen, and I'm still going to complain about the bathroom breaks, but finding a little serenity with hydration isn't about perfection. It’s about realizing it’s totally okay to take the scenic route—even if you have to take a left at Albuquerque to get there.
