That time a bottle of holy water disappeared at my house

Bottled water oddities in my childhood

It has been a while since I started an article based on data. I have some particular stories in mind that I wanted to share, and everything starts with this infographic of countries with the highest usage of bottled water.

I get why the consumption of bottled water is high in countries like Mexico and Brazil. Tap water is not drinkable so we have to rely on corporations, instead of the government, to filter and distribute it. But, ITALY? I thought that tap water in most places in Europe was good quality and suitable for human consumption, so I researched a bit about was so particular in Italy that people preferred to buy bottled water, and the answer is: Lifestyle. Apparently, Italians really like to consume water that comes from springs since it is an expression of the quality of its sourcing, and allegedly it is kind of a habit to have bottled water when you go to a restaurant to hang out with your loved ones to live la dolce vita. And you know what they say “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world that you need bottled water in places where tap water is drinkable”.

One of the most unique things about water consumption in Mexico that I have not seen anywhere else is the size of our largest water container: a garrafón; a 20-liter hard plastic bottle which is usually sold by trucks that would deliver them twice per week to your house. No one talks about it, but it is part of our collective childhood trauma that either:

a. Your mom went out of the house and asked you to keep an eye on the garrafón delivery person (they would ring your bell and ask you if you wanted to buy water), but you were distracted by watching Pokemon and did not hear Mr. Water knocking. How did you explain to your mom that your family won’t be having water until the next garrafon delivery? What water were your parents supposed to use to boil the chicken that you also forgot to defrost?

b. You had to be the one to carry and replace the garrafón in one of the water distributors. This is a task that up to this day requires great physical and psychological strength. Here are two very different approaches of this task that I found on TikTok:

@nomedigassenoraMujer que cambia el garrafón de agua se respeta 💪

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@lorivacation#water dispenser How many people does it take to refill water jug? 😂😂 What’s the trick?

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Bottled water trauma does not end here. I don’t know if this happens everywhere in the world, but on a specific day in April, you can take bottled water to church and the priest will perform a mass blessing of items. This means you can conveniently take the bottles of holy water back home in case you need to bless your cat or perform an unexpected exorcism. When I was around 10 years old, we took a small bottle of water blessed by our local priest and placed it on one of the toy shelves in my brother’s room.

Months passed by and one day I noticed the bottle disappeared from its usual place. Concerned, I asked my mom whether she had moved the bottle or if it was already used to bless an item/place/person. She was appalled. She did not know what happened to the bottle of holy water either. My brother was too young and short to be able to reach it, so this really was a mystery. My next thought was that some evil entity took it away from us, naturally. However, after my dad came back from work and we continued our inquiry with him, he hesitated to tell us that a couple of weeks ago he was very thirsty and, instead of going downstairs, he conveniently took the bottle of water that was in his reach and continued to DRINK ALL THE HOLY WATER AT ONCE. We waited patiently to see if my dad would display any unique behaviors after drinking 255 ml of holy water, and let me tell you that we are still waiting.

We never took any new bottles of water to be blessed, but we took away the important lesson of always labeling your holy water. On the positive side, it was about time that somebody finally blessed our bathroom.