Lately there has been a trend of rendering transparent water bottles opaque by slapping shitty stickers on them. A trend we like to call The Nalgene Merit Badge. These water bottles come factory equipped with a great feature: Measurements (Metric and Imperial!). That means when you’re going out for a long hike you can monitor your intake and conserve water for your trip. Or, when you’re hiking with friends and making a batch of coffee in the Jet Boil you can accurately contribute 8oz to the pot. This cannot be achieved when the 16-6oz levels are covered by a Yosemite National Park sticker.
Remember in Gattaca when Ethan Hawke beat his genetically superior brother in a swim race? He said it was because he never saved anything for the swim back. While that could work in some sort of endurance feat, there are certain things you need to know when to use and when to conserve. Here are a few: Gasoline, Toilet Paper, Cigarettes, and perhaps most importantly, Water. There’s plenty of places to slap shitty stickers that don’t inhibit you from checking vital fluid levels. You wouldn’t put a sticker on your car’s dipstick (who are we kidding, you don’t check your oil).
The outdoor community is full trends often to the detriment of the objective, being outdoors. Our analysts say the point of The Nalgene Merit Badge is to plaster your water bottle with as many stickers as possible so people can admire your travels from across the hot yoga studio. We imagine that these people hope someone will approach them and say: “I can see here from your water bottle that you like National Parks. Congratulations on the feat of paying $35 to gain entry to that plot of public land. And thank you for picking up this sticker in the gift shop to affix to your water bottle.” At least that’s my only theory because I can’t think of any valid reason to not know how much water one has left.
On the upside this can act as a beacon to identify people you shouldn’t spend time in the outdoors with.
-publius
The Huck 