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I was at a job interview the other day and all the polite interviewers, assuming I was parched, asked if I would like “a water.” I said no because I always drink any beverage too fast and would have ultimately ended up having to pee during the interview. And having to pee is a far more uncomfortable state to be in than the state of being moderately thirsty. Even without water, it seems, interviews make you want to pee. I guess it has to do with stage fright or something.

What intrigued me was the use of an indefinite article (or any article for that matter) before the noun, “water.” I immediately attributed this change in common vocabulary to the increasing commoditization of the element that is the essence of life, a trend that tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth. People have been saying “a glass of water” and “a cup of water” forever, adding the article to the thing which contains the water. But this is the first time, I’ve noticed the article used to describe the water itself, just like “a soda.”

Drinking water is now a commodity. It has brands, logos, labels, different shapes and sizes, and nutritional information—just like soda. What flows freely from your faucet is now being advertised and sold to you. I agree that tap water can taste like shit depending on what kind of shit is in your local ecosystem, but has the taste gotten worse? Everybody seemed to be okay with the taste before the proliferation of bottled water. I don’t think anybody’s died from drinking tap water (some, I’m sure, have been saved because of it) and I don’t think the government is spiking the water, either. I mistrust companies more than I mistrust the government.

Take a look at who’s bottling this abundant natural resource: it’s the soda companies. Pepsi has Aquafina and Coke has Dasani. It’s no doubt that they’re trying to cover all the bases in the non-alcoholic beverage sector. Bottled drinking water was a virtually non-existent market before they created it. On a more positive note, maybe the soda companies resorted to bottling water in response to America’s increasing health consciousness. After all, they could care less what we’re drinking, as long as we’re buying it from them.

I agree bottled water tastes better sometimes, but I just feel like a sucker paying for it. I don’t mind the taste of tap water and I’m not a germophobe. America has this neurosis whereby they think that anything not wrapped in plastic is tainted. Madison Avenue knows this and fosters it, especially when it comes to the infinitesimal selection of household cleaning products. If it’s not wrapped in plastic and branded it’s not a product and can’t be sold.

So we now say “a water” to imply “a bottle of water”—an unintentional shift in speech. If the day ever comes when people start referring to water as Dasani and taking the “Aquafina Challenge,” I’m going to start selling air.

The last two works of lit I’ve read include these authors. I recently finished Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins and I currently have Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand on hold. It’s an epic novel and not as light as Robbins’ adventures.

I learned last summer, when I read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, that the books I choose to digest have a direct impact on my general attitude towards life. Being a recent college grad, I felt some parallels between Raskolnikov and myself, both of us being poor students and close in age. The existential Russian literature just gave me a depressed outlook on life. After finishing it—I like to finish what I start—I decided that I wouldn’t be reading anymore depressing literature.

Tom Robbins, on the other hand, doesn’t take life as seriously. He’d agree with Dostoevsky that the house is on fire and we’re looking out the second story window, but Robbins is of the opinion that we’ve got the best damn view in the house. His “syrup of wahoo” gives me a zest for life and an appreciation for all of its absurdities.

Ayn Rand is of yet another school of thought. I don’t know that she’d agree that the house is on fire, but if it was, she’d certainly try to stop it. Her rebellious rebuttal of popular literary themes of her day is certainly quite refreshing; however, I do think that her stance is a little extreme. I think it’s impossible for me to become a railroad tycoon but Rand inspires me to shrug my what-can-you-do? attitude and to acheive my goals.

Reading all this literature also makes me question the value of literature itself. As I read Atlas Shrugged it makes me want to throw the book down and do something productive (which doesn’t include reading non-fictional literature). I mean, I’m never going to become a railroad tycoon by reading books all day. But then, who’s to say becoming a railroad tycoon is the purpose of life? I suppose the purpose of literature is to find this out and until I find a suitable answer, I’ll continue reading.