One Iowa Moron Doesn’t Know How a Water Cooler Works

Once again, I find myself being the moron in this story. I'm the moron who doesn't know how a water cooler works. This isn't the first time I've had to call myself out for not being very smart. You may remember the Iowa moron who set his lawn on fire or the time one Iowa moron forgot how sunscreen worked. Thankfully I've had a decent run and haven't had to put myself on blast for a good while. Until this morning... I can't be the only one who wouldn't know this cooler worked, right?

My normal routine when I walk into work every morning is to put my lunch in the work fridge, walk to my office and set my backpack down, grab my water bottle, and fill it up at the sink. Seems pretty normal for the most part. I try to drink close to 64 oz of water at work every day and having a water bottle with the amounts you're drinking really helps keep you motivated to keep going. I discovered this morning it might be weird to be filling it up at the sink.

Now, I've been drinking water from the hose and tap water from the sink my entire life. I could go on doing this forever. I will say, I've never even thought about this until a co-worker of mine asked me "why aren't you using the water from the cooler?" "What cooler?" I replied.

You see that white water cooler to the right? That water cooler. I have been working here for 6 months and had no clue this thing was operational. To make matters worse, my dad used to work for a company called Glenwood, where they made and sold distilled water. Whether that be in bottles or 5-gallon jugs, we had all kinds of water at the house. We even had a water cooler in our kitchen.

Now, in my defense, I've never seen a water cooler that didn't have a big blue jug above it. I've obviously noticed this cooler sitting there before but I just assumed it was something broken that had just been laying around the office. Plenty of offices are full of stuff that no one uses and it just sits there. Not this water cooler. It doesn't need a 5-gallon jug above it.

Long story short, the water out of this cooler is colder and tastes better than the water from the sink. I'm glad it took me 169 days to realize this thing worked. I also apologize for this being the dumbest story you're going to read all day. I'm also just learning that this thing has the option for hot water?! For my next trick, I might have to dive into learning how that works.