i dated this guy for a while back when i did that kind of thing. and whenever he had a particularly satisfying drink of water (you know how sometimes water is just perfect?) he’d say “man, who invented water? shit’s mad good.” i thought it was very funny and i started saying it as well, because once you hear that, it’s like all you can think about after you drink some good water, i swear. after a while, he told me that he took that phrase from some guy he knew in college, and apparently the two of them got in a fist fight over a girl?? mind you they were theater majors, who usually work out their beefs by writing thinly veiled self-victimizing one-act plays about each other and “subconsciously” sabotaging each other’s productions. so it was very weird to me that this very nebbishly dapper guy i was dating had gotten into a fist fight with the guy who introduced “man who invented water? shit’s mad good” into my life. also freaked me out a bit bc it was a reminder that you can feel like you know someone very well and still find out that they can and have acted in ways that are completely opposite to how you think you know them. i tried to stop using the phrase after that but i just couldn’t. and THEN one time i ate too many marijuana gummies by accident and i called my dad because i thought i was going to die and then he told me to drink water and i did and without thinking i said “who invented water? shit’s mad good” by that time that guy and i had broken up and it was a shitty shitty break up, so i told my dad the story of the phrase and the fist fight and everything, and i was so upset because my dad Did Not Get how weird the story was. and in hindsight, it’s not a very weird story at all, or even a good one, for that matter. the phrase “man, who invented water? shit’s mad good” is now full of strange and weird and sad and cringe energy for me. but i physically cannot stop saying it. it has been three years since that conversation with my dad, four years since i learned of its true origins, and seven years since i first heard the phrase. i don’t think i’ll ever be free at this point. i think it’s just one of those phrases you can’t stop using. i mean, my ex kept saying it even after the dude PUNCHED him. im half convinced the phrase has some kind of strange energy that means you will never forget it. i’m sharing with you all here to share the burden of its curse.
anyway. who invented water? shit’s mad good