About a week ago, the office of the Jordan Independent switched its water sources. Before the switch, anytime I wanted to take a drink of water, I had to fill up a cup at the water cooler in our back room. After the switch, I have the option of grabbing a 1-pint bottle and brining it back to my desk.

I like this new system for two reasons:

1. I’m drinking more water, which is theoretically more healthy for me.
2. I’m totally blowing away the competition by drinking more water than anyone else in the office.

See, in order to determine the demand for supplied water, our company has given each of the three employees in the JI office their own stack of water bottles. Each stack contains three packages each of 24 1-pint bottles of water. We’re asked only to take water bottles from our own stack, so that they can determine how much water each of us is drinking. A little unusual, I’ll grant you, but it seems fair enough.

The bottles really are helping me drink more water each day, because I can keep a bottle at my desk while I work. The only problem is that I’m a competitive person. Now I see water consumption as a race to see which employee can finish hs or her stack first. I’m not drinking any more water than I feel thirsty for each day. My lead is tenuous, but I’m still winning!

In essence, each employee has 72 bottles of water to finish in the first round. Here’s how the totals stack up so far:

• Brandon – 57 bottles to go (15 bottles down)
• Mathias – 58 bottles to go (14 bottles down)
• Nancy – 71 bottles to go (one bottle down)

Mathias pulled into an early lead, but I’ve slowly and steadily been catching up in the past few days. I passed him just this morning.