I’m That Friend Who Always Asks if You’ve Hydrated and, Well, Have You?

Friend, you seem down. Are you drinking enough water?

Look, I know modern life holds many reasons to forget. Work. Church. Kids who call you a worthless shitfreckle and a husband who slides his Chapstick cap of a penis into anything plausibly sentient. I get it.

But being even slightly dehydrated throws you off. Similar to how finding an unknown anus’s anal beads in a spouse’s go-bag forces questions upon your marriage. Fact is, most are walking around not even realizing they’re thirsty. Or that “business trip” doesn’t always mean business trip.

It’s simple: Eight glasses, morning to night. If you’re like me, afternoons are mostly spent setting increasingly appreciable rage fires in increasingly busy Paneras, making that daypart less ideal. But whatever your hydration schedule, I find it best to begin when you first wake, right before the dark thoughts have settled in.

And that’s a full glass, too. Personally, I like to feel all fancy-schmancy by using the goblet my mother-in-law says exemplifies “the tackiness I’ve brought to the family.” I like this one because you can hold it by any of the pea green octopus’s eight pee yellow tentacles. Well, now only six, since the Elmer’s didn’t take. But still — I enjoy the options. And the rhinestones.

Your little ones will surely benefit from your good example. My parents mainly gave us coke and Pepsi — the first for energy and the latter to get the coke’s drip taste out of our throats. Water was limited to the chore of draining mom’s car bong. Parents didn’t know as much about wellness then. Or how to hide paraphernalia from the po-po if water’s still inside.

When my own daughter’s not busy updating the Insta she’s devoted to my varicose veins or her TikTok leaking details from one of my mandated wellness checks, I always nudge her to hydrate. I even got her one of those cool Yeti canteens. When I showed her, she told me to “go fuck [my]self.” Sensing she was a tad off, I reminded her to take some water. To which she replied, “in the shitbox, with a serrated blade.” ::sigh:: Pre-tweens.

But my son’s a tougher nut. I noticed his urine was quite dark. The last ER doc said it’s because his precocious methamphetamine addiction has macerated his insides. I say he just needs more H2O. Sadly, he doesn’t care for tap. Or basic human responsibility. So I suggested sparkling. And to at least make some dough by cooking meth, too.

Speaking of science: Did you realize 60% of our bodies are water? So just take my hubby. Even if .6% of him’s often inside another woman, he’s got more substantial parts in need of lubrication. I often call his office to nag him. Mostly about the size of this month’s “extramarital oopsy” bill, but also about the water thing, too.

Cause there’s no aborting reality: Water flushes the system. Reduces headaches. Gives us something to obsess about other than the usual concerns regarding mounting gambling debt, a son’s laziness about slinging rock to lessen said debt, or finding a watertight glue that’ll better bond ceramic tentacles.

There’s also digestion. It’s well established that water helps you swallow. Less publicized is how it helps breadier appetizers come back up when you surreptitiously excuse yourself to the ladies. Without water, I wouldn’t be so trim. Period.

To say nothing of how great it is for my skin. Last night, while practicing my “basically lucid” mask in that mirror I cracked during the latter half of last week’s early-midweek bender, I couldn’t help but notice how youthful I look. That’s all water, friend. Dire tears are surprisingly effective moisturizer.

For motivating others along their journeys, a fun phrase can serve as light reminder. When my kids fail to self-irrigate, I jokingly chirp, “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” My daughter always messes that up, thinking it’s “wither, whore!” instead. But her memory’s been off ever since that whole human trafficking thing. First kid; who knew?

Whenever stuck, refer back to the three R’s: Replenish. Renew. Racism’s A Lie. My shrink says this saying both confuses and disgusts her. Also to tender backpayment or it’s my final session. But she’s only acting curmudgeonly because I know of her nether regions’ recurring appointment atop my husband’s midlife crisis goatee. You have no such excuse. Yet. At least I don’t think. Are you missing anal beads?

Regardless, what you’re not missing is me — and I want you to grab some agua. Now. I’ll wait here with the seventeen named demons that call my mind home and the sixteen ounces of pure, filtered goodness with which I vainly try to extinguish their existence.

Salud!*

 

*is what I’ve named the most terrifying of the seventeen demons.