Happy New Year guys, right now I’m in Kawasaki, Japan, on a trip with my SCOPE team visiting Mitsubishi Electric Headquarters. SCOPE stands for Senior Capstone Program in Engineering and Mitsubishi Electric is the sponsoring company that we’ve been working with for the past semester. However this isn’t another post about Japan, it is a post about my water bottle.
My water bottle and I have been inseparable ever since I switched to this particular one the summer of 2016. It has a few key features, it’s thermally insulated, it has a “press to drink” spout, and it has a handle. When I go out I check to see if I have my phone, my wallet, and my water bottle. In fact I keep it around me so often that it cameos in a lot of my pictures.
My water bottle in the top right corner at an event I ran at Olin over the summer.
One of the worst feelings in the world is when you feel like you’ve forgotten something. Fifteen minutes before my flight (SFO -> Japan) I’m sitting in my plane when my stomach drops. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit. I forgot my water bottle outside. I unclip my seat belt and rush outside, as soon as I dash out the plane a flight attendant screams “WAAAAIT!.” Apparently once you board a flight you can’t reboard for security reasons. She waves an airport agent over and tells me that he’ll go look for my water bottle. The dude goes out and I’m anxiously waiting. I’m like pretty much 100% sure that my water bottle is gone forever but I still can’t help but hope. He walks back in, shrugs and says “I looked everywhere, even in the trash can, it’s no where.” And in my head I can picture it sitting by itself lonely on the third chair in the left side of the waiting area. Goodbye, I loved you.
So to commemorate its memory here’s a few stories featuring my water bottle.
My water bottle whistles. It does this quiet but audible high pitched whining.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
It’s kinda funny watching people sitting around me trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. They’ll assume it’s the light, but then move their head around trying to figure out why it gets quieter. Sometimes they’ll say “is it me or do you hear that sound?”
When they find out it’s my water bottle they’re usually pretty impressed, until I tell them it’s because I fill it with hot water. The hot water creates enough steam that the inside of it is pressurized. As it’s gotten older the rubber gasket no longer holds a tight enough seal and so it squeals to relieve some of that pressure. When I push the button to relieve the pressure it goes pffffft and sprays a bit of steam out like a whale does with its blowhole. I’ve had a few times where I’ve pressed the button and it goes pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft, spurting a bunch of burning hot steam onto my face. It was annoying at times but it was like taking care of a pet, the whistling definitely added a lot of character to it.
My water bottle was a twin. My parents got a pair for $19.99 at Costco. One was teal with with silver accents and the other was silver with teal accents. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost a water bottle. I took it’s sibling to Japan with me. I brought it everywhere with me. It traveled to Osaka, Kyoto, Sendai. Once I went on a hot springs trip with my friends in Sakunami. I had a blast, soaked in hot water all day, read some books, played go, went to different hot springs indoors and outdoors where it was cold enough that the snow still covered the ground. I realized that it was gone on the train ride back.
I wonder, what happens to forgotten water bottles, abandoned by their owners. Do they sit there until someone takes it and throws it in the trash? Do they sit at the bottom of a lost and found box dusty from waiting? Do they sit at a landfill or do they get new life? Goodbye, I loved you too.
My water bottle with me and Melody at the Tucson desert museum.
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