Being the spouse of a doctor means you’re going to inevitably get free shit. There are many organizations, vendors and such that want your partner’s attention and they will eventually try to ply said attention with all manner of tchotchkes.
Usually these will be pens, pencils or notepads. Occasionally someone will get cute and give out frisbees or keychains. Recently, my dear Dr. S was gifted something unusual: a Stanley water bottle.
If you’re unfamiliar with Stanley water bottles, they’re these aluminum cups with handles and a plastic lid with a built in straw. Stanleys are largely a status symbol for college-educated white women and suburban soccer moms. Besides being the vessels of choice for said semi-affluent ladies, Stanleys are also known for their exorbitant price tag: they run $25-$75 dollars depending on how much hydration one wants to carry at a given time.
My wife, being a woman of sense and class, immediately turned up her nose at it.
“It’s ugly and stupid,” she said. “I have two plastic bottles I keep with me during the day that work just fine.”
“Well if it offends that much, my dear, how about I take it off your hands?”
“I don’t give a damn if the dog shits in it,” she daintily replied.
So I’ve carried around the Stanley ever since. Here are a couple of observations I’d like to share in this short time frame.
First, owning a Stanley is definitely a gender-specific thing. Even if your Stanley isn’t some obviously feminine color (mine’s an off white, thank you very much), men and women will look at you sideways if you’re a man attempting to make his way in a woman’s Stanley world. Either that or they’ll think you’re gay.
Second, ignore the first observation because these things are stupid good at keeping liquids cold. I’ve left this fucking thing out on the kitchen counter for a day and the water inside tasted just as cold as when I originally poured it. I’m not sure how it would handle carbonated beverages, but I bet it’d be just fine.
Third, on Halloween, every white woman you see in the neighborhood with a Stanley has the thing full of some sort of cocktail. Don’t ask me to explain this. I can’t because I’m a man. What I can tell you is if they’re mothers, then those women are drinking something about three times stronger than a grown man’s usually used to imbibing.
Fourth, owning a Stanley means one gets to complain about microplastics. I don’t know what microplastics are and I really have no desire to look them up. Reddit tells me I should be terrified of them and drinking water out of a Stanley apparently fixes all that.
Finally, people get really, REALLY pissy when you can honestly tell them you paid nothing for your Stanley. I guess part of being in the Stanley world is knowing how much you went into debt to avoid being dehydrated and not accumulating extra debt is a bad thing.
Women in this country, especially white women, will do strange shit to stay hydrated.
Anyway, I’m going to keep using my Stanley because I hate to let free stuff go to waste. And it’s a decent water bottle. Screw all those judgmental pricks, right? It’s 2025. If you’re a man who wants to drink out of a Stanley, then by God, drink out of a Stanley!
If I get nervous enough about being judged for the crime of Drinking From A Stanley While Male, I’ll just spray paint the fucking thing and tell everyone it was a Kroger Dollar Deal.
See y’all next week!