"Depend" on Water

Given the fact that I haven’t blogged in a while, I thought it was high time to renew my blogging efforts. My blog today will explore an incident that happened before school was out, back in early June—an incident which I have been too mortified to speak of until this moment. Against my mother’s wishes, and with my friend Katie’s encouragement, I have decided to offer up a bit of my own humiliation for your entertainment; WARNING-this is not for the easily offended, so stop reading now if that’s you.

If you’re still with me, let’s go back in time about a month. My friends and I met a new friend in the neighborhood, Jeremy, and he was playing at the pool with the gang. This particular day was bright and sunny—perfect for sunbathing and attempting to break out of my translucently pale skin. As we all sat merrily around laughing, gabbing, and floating –the topic of working out came up.

“I really should try to go to the gym,” I muse half-heartedly. “I haven’t seen my trainer in weeks.”

Intrigued by this conversation, Jeremy pipes in—chugging the gallon of water bobbing around in his right hand—and asks what sorts of workouts the trainer does. Katie—a fellow member at the YMCA where I work out—offers her take, “He kills people. They look like they are dying. He’s good…” I interrupt her to confirm his greatness, adding that he—like Jeremy—drinks a gallon of water a day. Suddenly, I have a break-through.

Fit people—really, really fit people—drink water. By the gallon. I interrupt my groundbreaking discovery to declare to my friends that I think I should give it a shot. “I am going to stop drinking so much Diet Coke and give Water Gallons a try.” Not stunned by this obviously momentous proclamation, my very closest friends simply continue floating, for they know my addiction to Diet Coke, and I’m sure they see very little prospect in my newfound desire for water. They don’t believe me, but my new friend—Jeremy—who knows little of my lacking willpower—buys in and begins an oratory condoning the powers of distilled water. Eventually ending his oratorical excellence with “Google it. It’s true,” he has nearly REALLY convinced me to try this.

Dripping a ten-foot trail of water behind my voluptuousness, I waddle over to my lounge chair and grab my iPhone. I google it, where I find that much of the research shows some benefit in drinking distilled water for a limited period of time as a sort of detox. “Either way, it has to be better than Diet Coke,” I tell myself. That settles it. I’m giving this a shot.

That night, I go load up on Distilled Water at the grocery store. I only get enough for the first three days, just to see how I do. I go to bed that night, and eagerly wake the next morning, ready to cart my gallon to school. As I walk into school that day, I have flashbacks to Home Ec. Class, where we had to carry around a bag of flour to show us how hard it would be having a kid. I carry my new baby on my right hip, balancing it with my teaching bag full of graded papers. I arrive in my classroom, out of breath—but ready to begin chugging. I place the graded papers in the appropriate bin, and I open the gallon. As I turn it up and begin gulping, I see a few students arriving. They are looking at me with horror in their faces. Suddenly, I feel a little self-conscious about not bringing a cup or something more lady-like to drink from—I mean, I am drinking right from the gallon. Not exactly refined. But my role models are both men—big, chunky, body builder men...and they drank from the gallon.

I ignore the embarrassment, embrace my inner imbecile, and continue chugging right in front of the growing crowd of students changing classes. One student approaches me with a genuine look of concern and whispers, “Mrs. Z, are you being drug tested or something?” I choke down that gulp of water to avoid spitting it as I laugh. I quickly answer NO and proceed to explain that I’m just trying to slim down a bit. I answer similar questions for the rest of the day, but my gallon was my best friend in the face of these questions. I tipped it back time and time again, until I only had about a third of it left by the time I left school at 3:00.

Proud of my progress, I down the remaining third of a gallon that night at dinner, adding one more glass of water just before bedtime. I lie in bed and relish in my success, thinking this must be how it is done—one healthy change at a time…

And change I did. That night, along with my change in drinking habits, I also changed my pajamas, my sheets, even my mattress pad! Around what must have been 3am, I became aware of a dream. In the dream, I had to pee. I finally made it to the restroom, and relieved, I tried to go. But I couldn’t, or at least I was having trouble. “Push harder,” I remember my subconscious dream-self saying. I did. I pushed and pushed and pushed until I awoke in a puddle the size of Lake Eerie.

“Oh, shit, I’ve pissed the bed,” I realize as I begin fully awakening. Here’s a first. Truly mortified, I looked over at my husband, blissfully sleeping with his sleep apnea mask on. “UGH, I don’t wanna wake him,” I thought, panicking. I run to the bathroom and grab some towels, hoping that perhaps I can just pad the pee until I could change it in the morning without him knowing. No such luck. Quickly, my towels absorbed enough liquid that they were a light ecru instead of bright white. “DAMMIT,” I curse to the cup on my bedstand—which sits with melted ice, laughing at my incontinence. I go ahead and wake my hubby, change the sheets, and drift back to a dry and dreary sleep.

SO, I changed a lot in a day. The next day, I changed my schedule. Like a wee two year old, I was allowed no water after 7pm. Sure would have been helpful if the Water Gallon Club would have let me in on that secret…which is why I find it vital to let all of you in on the same little tidbit: if you drink water—particularly by the gallon—after around 7pm, you will pee your bed—but, hey, at least you’ll be skinny. DEPEND on that (pun intended).