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This so-called “beverage” is so revolting that if you came across it while lost in the desert, you’d rather take your chances raw-dogging a cactus.
With the temperatures finally heating up across the United States, you probably started fantasizing about all of the fun things that the warm weather brings — women in sundresses, having an excuse to make a margarita on a Tuesday, outdoor activities to keep your kids happy and out of your hair, not getting a new cold, flu, or virus every other week, regathering your will to live, etc.
But then you remember that you’re going to sweat pretty much non-stop for the next 22 weeks, so it’s important to stay hydrated. You reach for a bottle of water, but you’d rather dry out into a shriveled sack of leather than drink what you find. This so-called “beverage” is so revolting that if you came across it while lost in the desert, you’d rather take your chances raw-dogging a cactus. It’s the dirty Applebee’s dishwater that someone packaged up and put in a vending machine.
Aquafina.
First of all, why is it salty? Aquafina, with its brackish, semi-salinated flavor, tastes like you dove into the East River right where it weaves past the Rikers Island sewer outflow and then decided to take a big, hearty gulp. You’re pretty sure you found the crumbs of a commissary bag of Funyuns at the bottom of the last bottle you drank. It’s like someone read the instructions for seasoning pasta water and thought, “Hey, let’s trick people into drinking this.”
You’ll never forget that work conference in Las Vegas that required you to stand around hungover in an exhibit hall for three days straight where the only hydration option was Aquafina. If it wasn’t for your pounding headache, chapped lips, and borderline dysentery, you’d have opted for the taste of stale vomit in your mouth over having to suck down another cobalt-hued flagon of sadness. You half-expected the Mandalay Maintenance Man to reveal a hidden distillery beneath Lake Mead, where corpses of card counters and dice sliders are boiled and bottled by the mob.
Ever since that trip, you have a recurring nightmare where the sour taste of pickled public pool water coats your tonsils like an Exxon Valdez pelican. Aquafina is a beverage that assaults the taste buds with the chaotic fervor of a Four Loko-fueled Swiftie in the Eras Tour parking lot. It’s like gulping down the tears of a vagrant mime, each drop a silent scream of disappointment. The flavor, a dismal echo of asparagus pee that's vacationed in a rusty bucket, leaves a lonely metallic tang reminiscent of licking the nine-volt battery that powers your sex robot. It simply will not go away, just like that guy who lived across the hall from you in college who loved comic books way too much and would always “swing by” to see what you were up to, then dither away on your acoustic guitar for an hour without asking.
Jesus Christ, Aquafina is terrible.
To make it, PepsiCo uses a technique called reverse osmosis, which filters out impurities from the water by running it through the air conditioning condenser of a 1987 Cadillac Cimarron. That’s why your refined palette detects a faint bouquet of petroleum and windshield wiper fluid. A few years ago on Christmas Eve, your Uncle Jack ashed a few Lucky Strikes into a glass of eggnog that had been curdling by the fire most of the night. It tasted way better than Aquafina.
In conclusion, Aquafina is the Church of Satan’s holy water, an insult to beverages everywhere, and a disgrace upon a foundational element of life. It’s the Kristen Stewart of bottled drinks — confusing, joyless, and unnervingly flat. So this summer, do yourself a favor: open the tap, fill up a glass, and embrace the lead exposure, hepatitis, and trace elements of discarded pharmaceuticals. It’s still better than paying for an Aquafina.
What the fuck are you smiling about, Dasani?