I was driving home from work. The digital car thermometer seemed to be laughing at me as it read 101 degrees. My mouth was dry and I really needed some water. I was stuck in Chicago traffic so I knew it would be at least 45 minutes before I got home. I rolled up the windows. Maybe AC would help. At this point, I was willing to try the weirdest of ideas. AC didn’t do a thing, of course. I was now thirsty to the point of nausea. Not good.

I thought it might help to distract myself by putting the music up louder. I know. None of my techniques were making any sense. I wondered if I was at the point of delirium. But after rethinking it, I realized that I was just being a drama queen, a very desperate, thirsty drama queen.

As I glanced to the right to reach for the radio station knob, I saw a water bottle snugly sitting in the passenger door compartment. Is it a mirage? I thought. I blinked hard, well, not too hard because I still had to drive. No, this is for real.

Traffic’s slow. I can snap off my seat belt and reach over. Except, for one thing. This very yummy looking water had been sitting in the car for at least a week. And that meant it was now well-saturated with all of the chemicals from its bottle. I contemplated between the two evils – dehydration or drinking liquid toxins. Grumpy,  frustrated, and more dramatic than ever, I finally made it home, ran to the kitchen while yelling for my girls to call 911 if I passed out as they rolled their eyes, and poured a nice, tall glass of filtered tap water.

Bottled water not only absorbs chemicals from its container under both hot and cold temperatures, such as sitting in your car or chilling in the freezer, there is also research that shows that 40% of the time, bottled water has the same composition as tap water. So why are we paying companies to bottle our tap water?

Read more about the negative consequences of drinking bottled water, including infertility, attention problems and cancer: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/01/15/dangers-of-drinking-water-from-a-plastic-bottle.aspx

Stay hydrated, my friends. The most interesting man in the world may be super duper interesting, and a very smooth looking older gentleman (oh right, besides the point), but he’s probably also extremely dehydrated.