Our one-year old granddaughter tried drinking water
out of a plastic bottle for the first time by wrapping her lips around the
opening, throwing her head back like a college student on spring break, and
chugging harder then a drunken sailor. Water exploded over her head. Forgetting
to un-tip the bottle as she pulled it away from her mouth, water gushed down
her chin to cascade like a waterfall over her dress until it soaked her socks.
“Hey, I drink water just like that!”
It’s
always exhilarating when you recognize yourself in the rising generation.
“I know, and it’s horrible.” My
husband sounded forlorn and a little sad as he stumbled away from our extremely
damp granddaughter. Avoiding direct eye contact he seemed less than impressed
with my connection to our posterity.
Grabbing a bottle of water that advertised being
pumped from the bowels of a fresh water spring located under Mount Olympus and
decanted into a plastic bottle designed by a computer, I threw my head back and
guzzled, throat convulsing. Water squirted from my nose.
“Linda, do you have to drink water out of a bottle
like that?” He grimaced, looking away.
“Like what?” I swiped the back of my hand
across my dripping chin.
“Like you’ll never get another drop of water again
for as long as you live—and eternity—like the water bottling industry has just
announced that all the water in the world has been teleported to the moon.
Seriously, it drives me crazy.”
Tipping the bottle back, I gulped until the sides of
the bottle collapsed.
“Like that. Good grief, woman, take a
breath,” he said, clawing at his own throat. “ Why do you throw your head back
like that? You drink like you can’t trust gravity to work. Just let the natural
elements of the universe help you.”
I let my head drop forward as I gasped for the
universal element of oxygen. I had a cramp in my neck.
“I don’t throw my head back.”
He smirked. “You throw your head
back, wrap your lips around the entire bottle opening, and squeeze the water
into your mouth like you’ve just dragged yourself across Death Valley.”
He picked up a bottle of spring water pumped from the
original Fountain of Youth with minerals added for flavor. He prepared to
demonstrate.
“Here! Let me show you.”
Then Sherwood Zern, husband, lover, and friend, put
his lips daintily to the rim of the bottle, gently flipped his wrist and sipped
water while keeping his little finger extended.
I thought he looked like a sissy llama at the
watering trough at the zoo, but I had to admit he had a definite flare that I
quite possibly—lack.
The problem now is that I’m so self-conscious about
the way I drink water from a bottle, I have to hide in the corner at the gym so
that all the other sweaty, thirsty water drinkers won’t mock and point. It’s
like finding out you can’t dance after a lifetime of dancing in public—a lot—and
it makes me wonder what else I can’t do better than a toddler.
Linda (Bottoms All The Way Up) Zern
