Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
You should probably drink a lot more water.
It’s our age’s most oft-recited quasi-medical mantra. Never mind that most of us have long thought that the human body came equipped with an “idiot light” on the dashboard that flashes “You Are Thirsty!” to be sure we don’t miss the signal that we are when we are. Thirsty, that is. In need of liquid sustenance. Maybe even ... water.
As precious as water is — far more precious than oil — you have to be really thirsty for it to taste really good; otherwise, the very best thing you can say about its taste is that it has none.
Cue, at this point, creepy, foreboding background music to set the stage for a horrific confession: I don’t much like water. I find drinking it all through the day to be tedious, boring, and annoying. And since the water gurus want you to drink a riverboat of it, you can’t just chug it and get the delightful experience over with. You’re chained to a water bottle all day long.
If you happen to be equipped with a urinary tract more than a few decades old, you will also find yourself chained to something else. Should you try to take a trip — say a 50-minute flight to Dallas and find the seat belt sign ON for most of the flight, be ready for an in-flight emergency.
You see, if the medical professional who recently told me to shoot for six bottles a day — those plastic, crackly, never decomposing vessels our planet is awash in that fools buy in bulk and never think of simply refilling from their own tap — well, if that guy’s right, we’re talking about 101.4 fluid ounces, .79251616 of a gallon, or, what I think they’re really shooting for, 3,000 milliliters.
Chug that, and your stomach and bladder will resemble the wreck of the Hindenburg sans fire.
Stay chained to the water bottle all day, though, and the water-pushers promise delightful results. Your car’s alternator will last longer. Vladimir Putin will become an incredibly big-hearted, warm person. Donald Trump will stop wee-hour tweeting. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez will lead hordes of their glassy-eyed followers in chants of “Cut Taxes Now!” World peace will flower.
Excuse me. I need to take a break.
From what little research I’ve done, it seems the very food we eat contains more of the water we need than you’d think. And fluid is fluid. Strain it through a coffee bean, tea leaves, or even add hops and fermentation (I’m talking diuretics here), and you may need more fluid for the net result, but fluid is fluid.
The way our brains/bodies let us know we’re thirsty is amazing, fascinating, and complex. But, basically, our bodies know.
I am trying to drink more water. I really am. Mostly, I don’t doubt that I need to drink more than I’d like to. But it’s a chore.
“Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again,” Jesus promised a water-drawing woman at a well (John 4). Thirst quenched forever. On every level, I like the sound of that.
Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at
