Four Hard Facts

Four Hard Facts About Water

By Damian Dressick

1. Mixed with Dewar's White Label whiskey and served in a highball glass with shaved ice, it will cost nearly eleven dollars, on average, in most bars within two blocks of New York City's Houston Street.

2. Many Christians believe a thorough dousing in concert with a contrite heart represents a first, but critically important, step on the road to the development and maintenance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

3. Breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, Australian crawl, take your pick—as Pennsylvania's Junior State champion 1994, you go through it like a fish.

4. After your two-year-old daughter trips and falls unseen into the neighbor's in-ground pool while you are in their summer house trying to find steak sauce, your involvement with Fact One can consume your life, costing you your spouse and job and nearly, if not quite all, your self-esteem. Fact Two will be rendered utterly powerless in the face of this tragedy and Fact Three will come to be the way you define irony—when slurring to strangers who have already asked you once to please leave them alone as closing time approaches at O'Flanagan's, always a little quicker than you'd like.