The average adult male needs to consume 2.5 liters of water per day to stay properly hydrated. I consume far more. The amount of water I drink is surely beyond your comprehension. I warn you, stranger, you have no idea just how hydrated I am.
I take my hydration incredibly seriously. My belly is almost always engorged with gratuitous liquid, a vast reservoir of precious H2O. Every moment of every day, each one of the cells in my body is swollen, bursting with excess water. I excrete a continuous stream of nearly colorless urine. Therefore, I advise you not to cross me. My level of hydration is almost certainly beyond your comprehension.
According to the National Hydration Council, proper hydration can help increase physical and mental performance. By my calculations, my performance should be ten or twenty times that of a normal human. Each one of my muscle fibers is a veritable water balloon, bloated with unnecessary amounts of liquid. My neural synapses are constantly squeezed under the crushing pressure of the water inside my skull. I could no doubt leap into action at any moment, exercising my superhuman abilities to, say, end a water crisis or perhaps extinguish a moderate-sized forest fire, were my attention not permanently engaged with my constant pursuit of new sources of wonderful, precious water.
Hydration is also shown to improve mood. Indeed, as a superhydrated man, I am in a constant state of near-nirvana. Nothing makes me so joyous as a full day spent bathing in the Los Angeles reservoir, sucking down huge, greedy mouthfuls of wonderful, extraordinary water. Meagerly hydrated as you are, I imagine you would have difficulty understanding these high pleasures of mine.
As a child, my friends and classmates would criticize my hydration habits. They mocked my practice of toting several gallon jugs of water to school every day in my red flyer wagon. They called me “Silly Silly Water Boy”, or sometimes “Red Flyer Water Water Piss Child”. Now, as a hydration god, I pity them and their pathetically small liquid intake. They surely could not even begin to fathom the level of hydration I have achieved.
You may not understand my level of hydration, but I warn you not to underestimate it. My powers are many, and also entirely predicated by my insane drinking habits. However, I must be going now. It has been almost six full minutes since I gulped down a liter of water, and my parched throat calls for drink. Goodbye, small, dry man. Perhaps someday you will know just how hydrated I am.
-DLG ’18, illustrated by TT ’19