Now, no need to get too alarmed...

but...

I may or may not be already dying…

(and all you philosophical types out there that would argue that we’re all essentially “dying” shut your yap… because your argument is obvious and annoying).

And it’s all because of my love of tap water. I love me some water straight out of the tap. To me it just tastes fresher and goes down quicker and easier than bottled water. I really dislike bottled water, in fact… so much so that when I grab bottled water, I usually end up drinking about 2 sips of it and then it lies around my house or my car untouched until I finally toss it after like 2 weeks.

I realize that I’m in the minority here. I mean, millions and millions of Americans love their Dasani, Aquafina, or Fuji bottles of water and that’s cool… it’s just… I don't care for the way they taste.

So, I carry this around with me EVERYWHERE. (I also have another one of these in dark purple).

This is my bottle that goes everywhere I go. It’s almost like a security blanket at this point… it’s always by side.

Today, the water bottle and I went home for lunch. I opened up a free Prevention magazine that I got in the mail yesterday and saw an article about BPA. (In case you’ve been living under a rock, BPA is some kind of plastic polymer crap that is in a lot of plastic bottles). Sure… I’d heard a little about it and deep down, I kind of assumed that my cheap ass bottles from Target probably were made from plastics with BPA, but I had no way to know for sure, and so I didn’t put it high on my priority list. I also kind of assumed that this was just a ploy to trick people into throwing away all their water bottles and buying new, expensive water bottles.

That is until today… The article said that you could tell if your bottle of water contains BPA. If the number 7 is inside the recycled symbol on the bottom of your bottle, then your bottle contains BPA. I was literally holding my bottle in my hand and slurping out of the straw when I read that. I put the bottle down and stared at it for a minute…

All I had to do was flip that bad boy over and look… and yet I stalled. I was scared, cause I knew that once I knew for sure… I was going to have to get a new bottle immediately.

So…. I looked…

At first I freaked out... but then I thought... well... still.. this could all be a ploy to scare me...

When I got back after lunch, I did a little BPA research… apparently… I’m not likely to die… but I’m likely to have all kinds of weird things happen to my female business… for real, how strange is this?

Possible effects of BPA from studies done (quite possibly the weirdest, ickiest possible effects I’ve ever seen).

*Permanent changes to genital tract (what does that even mean?)
*Changes in breast tissue that predispose cells to hormones and carcinogens
*increased prostate weight
*lower bodyweight, increase of anogenital distance in both genders, signs of early puberty and longer estrus.
*Decline in testicular testosterone
*Breast cells predisposed to cancer
*Prostate cells more sensitive to hormones and cancer
*Decreased maternal behaviors (Ummm... wtf?)
*Reversed the normal sex differences in brain structure and behavior (again, I have no idea what this even means, except that it sounds awful.)

Needless to say… whether it's just a ploy or not... those possible effects are enough to convince me. I’m throwing the bottle out and it’s time to go shopping for a new bottle. TODAY.

It’s going to be tough though, because I have very strict requirements for a bottle. All of which my beloved BPA bottles have:

1. A Straw. This is the most important thing to me. My new bottle has to have a straw. I don’t like having to unscrew a top. I like the ease of sitting on my couch, bottle in my hand, just slurping away at the straw. I also like being able to close the straw off so that it doesn’t leak out.
2. Size. Size matters, folks. I don’t want no wimpy 12/16/20 oz bottle. No. My bottle now holds about 36 oz and I won’t settle for anything less than 30.
3. A finger holder thingy. I love being able to carry my bottle with just a finger.

Hopefully all these things exists in Non BPA bottles. Tonight, I will find out.