Day 22: Water Bottles

I'm pretty sure that I would qualify as at least a beginning tree hugger. Between the over-full recycling containers in my kitchen, my (amateurly-managed) compost bins, and the Planet Earth class I run at school, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when people give me presents made specifically for those of us who see the world through jade-colored glasses. What does surprise me, though, is how many water bottles I receive.

Within the past three years, I've bought or received upwards of six water bottles, of which I consistently use two: one at home and one at work. The one at home stays mostly at my bedside table, but the one at school I carry around with me everywhere. Everyone knows the red water bottle with the green koozie. Three years into teaching, it is my mark, and it's an odd mark for a teacher to have.

What makes this so odd is that to be a teacher means to be in a perpetual state of dehydration. Bathroom breaks are reserved for the fleeting moments when you aren't solely responsible for the welfare of twenty plus children, namely before and after school and during lunch and planning. So, I have become incredibly adept at controlling when I do and don't need to relieve myself. Granted, I already had some practice from all the road trips we would take as kids (a result of my older brother's penchant for talking about rain and waterfalls when you really had to go, and my dad's refusal to stop for bathroom breaks), but doing it every day takes it to a whole nother level. They say that you shouldn't wait until you're thirsty to drink water, but when you can't just get up and go whenever you feel like it, water intake is something you limit. And what other choice do we have? Leave our students for five minutes and hope to God that they behave better without you than they do with you? Stay hydrated and try to distract yourself until lunch? It won't work; inevitably, the day you drink too much water is the day you're teaching the water cycle, or watching a video on tsunamis.

So as useful as these water bottles are, what good are they to me, someone who rations water when there's no shortage? I'll stick with the two I have and save my water binging for home.