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When I was little, maybe seven or eight, I got sick. Nothing tragic, just a virus or infection or something that required a course of antibiotics. I was prescribed some sort of sulfa drug and required to drink a full glass of water with each dose. I am not sure why, maybe because this was a frillion years ago (three decades! pre-Age of Enlightment! The Iron Age!) and drugs were different or because I was a kid or even possibly because my mom is very, very anxious. In any event, there was a lot of water drinking required and I hated water.

My grandmother was visiting us and she and my mother made me a deal. For every glass of water I drank they would each give me a quarter. They set me up on the couch with a tray table in front of me holding snacks, tissues, my dreaded glass of water and a waxy dixie cup to hold my bribe quarters. By the end of ten days, I had enough to keep myself in Archie comics and Lik'em Stix all summer.

I still hate water and really only drink it at the gym or if I'm eating out with someone else who says, "Just water for me." I didn't consider that a problem and I felt like life is hard enough with the getting up and the eating right and cleaning house and saving money and all the other things grown-up, adult people do automatically and effortlessly every single day to worry about drinking too much Diet Coke. I mean, really, this is a problem? I don't smoke or do drugs or beat seals, leave me to my chemical swill in peace, please.

Then I spent the past five months eating like a contestant in Supermarket Junk Food Sweep and laying around being overwhelmed and exhausted for no reason, while the winter dragged on and I retreated further and further into my cave. Forget exercising, some days I didn't even walk further than the couch to the bathroom. Finally, on Sunday I woke up to discover my fingers were swollen like sausages. Not even dainty breakfast links but big, fat, meaty Italian sausages. I was a mess. A sluggish, swollen, salt-filled, dehydrated mess. I told Chris I thought I might be dehydrated and he said (gently, lovingly), "Ya think?"

Because my dark, secret truth is that I am at heart still a seven year old, I require some incentive to drink all this goddamn water. I take my new favorite mug, fill it with ice cubes so the water is ice cold and use a straw because everything's more fun with straws. My plan is to drink four mugfuls each day but so far I've only managed three; maybe I'm just leaving myself room for improvement. Chris offered to pay me but I still have some pride left. I cling to my belief that the Diet Coke habit is only negligibly bad for me (seriously, don't tell me about metal erosion and birth defects and whatnot, I don't care, thanks) but I have to fit all this goddamn water in somehow, so I guess I'm cutting down on the soda.

This may ultimately make me a healthier person but also a less interesting one because now all I can talk about is the goddamn water.

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