Some Serious Water Drinking

(After staring at my screen for the good part of a rainy, late evening, I'm sad to say that I'm going to have to post something I've previously written. I'm blaming it on being sick on Sunday/Monday. Won't happen againz, I swearz it. Sorry sorry sorry.)

One afternoon, Jess challenged me to a water-drinking contest. I mean, we thought, it’s water right, water’s healthy, it’s hydrating, it’s liberating, so what harm could come from a water-drinking contest?

We had had beer-drinking affairs before, and those always tended to end up being quite pleasant. We would both start with a beer in each fist and start downing them like a Nathaniel champion. In fact, we got so good at it, that as the contests progressed, we hired other people to open our beers, that way we could save time and focus on what really mattered, downing that barley-refined liquid down our esophagi. Popping the top off the can, flipping the tab? No, that was a mundane pause to the real sport that lay within, and that kind of stuff was beneath us now. I mean, we were serious now. It might have been ok to open our own cans when we were younger, back in bush-league, but this was serious, and we couldn’t afford to slow the pace on account of a little aluminum tab.

After we were sufficiently expert at drinking beer, we moved on to milk. Milk had the convenience of coming in a quart-sized carton, which made the sidekick can opener superfluous, which was good, since me and Jess were spending quite a lot of money on actually buying the goods, and not really working so much as being employed, so it wasn’t like we could afford that much to pay someone else to open our goods anyway. We thought of charging admission to all our friends who came out to watch us have our contests, but eventually, me and Jess decided against this, seeing as that would be against the spirit of amateur competition, even though they do charge a buttload for tickets at the Olympics, but we felt morally superior to that, the Olympics being a commercialized blowfest and all, with everyone up on each other’s dicks (and each other’s pussies as well Jess reminded), telling each other how awesome they were, how special you all are, you really are, in like the top ‘point zero zero one’ percentile of human beings, and that if a meteor were to come and destroy the earth, you would be the ones who deserved to live in the super-secret underground bunker, NIMROD, not that you really should worry, since Darwinism favors you anyway and I’m sure your ‘point zero zero one’ percentile instincts would kick in, your killer spirit so to say, the one that serves you so well in Olympic competition.

Well, me and Jess could do some serious milk-drinking. We did some rough paper napkin math, and we calculated that we were definitely in the top ‘point zero zero one’ percentile of milk drinkers in the world based on age, ethnicity, gender, cultural standards of living, agility, twenty-meter dash times, lung capacity, brain capacity, gag reflex capacity, and index finger size. Me and Jess both had abnormally large index fingers that were especially suited for drinking milk. When asked, I said I was just blessed; I had my mother to thank for those genes. You can’t teach someone to be a great milk drinker I said; some are just born that way.

We knew we were kind of pushing the limits of what we were doing when we told Dale that we were going to drink the battery acid. Dale’s our friend, the one who usually supports us through everything. When me and Jess went through our first divorce, he held our hands and walked us through the process. When me and Jess decided we wanted to live among the cannibals in Micronesia, he was all for us having new experiences. We never really went to Micronesia; come to think of it, I don’t even know if cannibals exist anymore, though I’m sure they still do exist somewhere, there are all kinds of perverse people everywhere, but they probably wouldn’t congregate together, no, probably wouldn’t form like, you know, communities, being that they’re cannibals, but even so, it just goes to show you how great of a friend Dale was, seeing as he supported us in even something as crazy as living with cannibals in Micronesia. There could not be a more upstanding friend than Dale, and when we told him we were going to drink battery acid for our next contest, he threatened to call the cops.

We told him, now that truly isn’t in the sporting spirit, and other stock phrases, like ‘give it a rest’ and ‘be a good sport’ and ‘it’s all in the sporting spirit.’ When he had sufficiently calmed, he told us he would research the thing for us, and that he’d be on hand to monitor our contest, him being a good friend and all, and he’d hate to lose us as friends. We agreed, and the next day, Dale came back with a list of do’s and don’ts that he googled for us, and we agreed to not do anything too crazy and reminded each other that we weren’t competing against each other so much as we were competing against ourselves, and that we really shouldn’t go overboard and all-out and gung-ho and hari-kari and up and kill ourselves. Though we did agree it would be a great way to die, in the name of sport, a pure, uncorrupted amateur sport, though we also agreed having battery acid burn your internal organs would not be a great way to die.

We read some of Dale’s tenets and he made us sign a sworn affidavit. Seek emergency medical care immediately if either participant shows signs of unrest. If on the skin or within the eyes, flush with lots of water for at least 15 minutes. If swallowed—which we planned on doing—drink water or milk IMMEDIATELY—Dale said emphasis not added by him. If the patient is vomiting, continue providing water or milk. If available, drink 4-6 ounces milk of magnesia. For inhalation poisoning, remove the patient to fresh air.

We both agreed that we would each drink one ounce of acid per round, make-or-miss style, and we would only do a maximum of four ounces, not a drop more. If at any time, one of us backed out, we agreed not to think the other a coward, since this was serious business, playing with life and death and all. But on the day it was scheduled, it rained, and seeing as how we had to have it outdoors on account of the fresh air, we rain-delayed the event. We tried to find another date amenable to everyone who had promised to come out and watch, but there really wasn’t a good one, so we decided to postpone the event indefinitely.

One afternoon, Jess challenged me to a water-drinking contest. I thought that might be a good idea, to take a step back, let our bodies recuperate, but still do a bit of light training in the off-season in preparation for next year. Jess thought it should be a timed-trial, just like the beer-drinking contest, but I was enamored with make-or-miss. I told her that that was more of a test of endurance and strength and willpower, the true values of being a sportsman (and sportswoman she said), but she argued that I was only promoting make-or-miss, not out of moral righteousness, but because I was a little slow on the uptake, my handle markedly worse than hers. When I proved inflexible, she agreed to buck for it, odds or even, best of three. I asked her who bucks for things anymore these days, that was so bush-league, and that we’d be better off just consulting Dale. Dale suggested we flip a coin. We heartily agreed.

It was heads. Jess crumpled in defeat and I pumped my fists, but I knew that that was just the first round, the first battery of tests. I had the home-field advantage, but I still had to go out there and execute.

The day of the contest arrived. It was sunny and there was an excellent turnout. Being that this was my home turf, I elected to drink up first and get the nerves out of my system. I knew Jess wouldn’t be intimidated, she’d be prepared, so I decided to just drink it straight-up, no theatrics like I would use to psychologically play with and torture a lesser foe.

They say it was the fourth gallon is what did it. Obviously, I would reply, she only drank four gallons, it had to be the fourth gallon that sent her away and put her out of commission. The doctors said it was hyponatremia, and I said huh, and they said it’s called being dumbasses, but I told them that this was serious business and relayed to them Jess’s wish to die doing what she loved. But they said she wouldn’t die, it’s just that her sodium levels were way too low. She’d have to stay until the swelling in her brain got down before she could go, and I was glad, because there wasn’t anyone else like Jess who could compete like me. When she came out of the hospital a week later, me and Dale celebrated by taking her to the park, and it was there that we dumped the rest of the undrunk jugs of water, all twenty-two of them, dumped them one by one into the pond, and it was there, while dumping the water amongst the ducks, that I proposed marriage to her again.