A few months ago, the re-vamped NY Times magazine ran a “letter of recommendation” (really just a blog posting, right?) about La Croix seltzer.

I was shocked to read a silly, literary endorsement for something I already hold very dear. But when I’d finished the article, I realized the writer (Mary H.K. Choi) struck me as a cynic justifying her need to be cool. Her much cooler co-workers were addicted to my favorite drink, and Mary followed that crowd, but still needing to get in her self-serving jokes about her partying ways. (“Don’t worry. I’m not THAT uncool.”) Filled with millenial cliches lamenting her poverty and fabulosity, Choi didn’t write an ode to La Croix, she wrote an embarrassed confession.

Eh, get over yourself, Gavin. You aren’t published in the NY Times.

Brass tacks: I’m bitter because I loved LaCroix seltzer first; and my love is pure.

I stumbled upon La Croix on the bottom shelf of Target.

Immediate addiction followed.

I conceded that Choi’s nod to the in-crowd is correct, “Everyone knows pamplemousse is the best flavor”…cuz that’s true. Why it’s called “pamplemousse” and not just grapefruit is weird and wonderful. The other flavors were never considered by mother nature…with due reason.

But my love was instant and pure, not based on following crowds or envying the ironic admiration of co-workers younger (and cooler) than me.

Months after our Target discovery, my partner was elated to report, “Guess what I found at Gourmet Garage?”

“La Croix! And only $6.99 per case!”

A 100% mark-up. (Gourmet Garage lives up to its name: high quality, high prices.)

Now, when I blaze through Target with my kids, desperately attempting to avoid the candy, cookie and toy aisles, I’ll buy all the cases I can. I’ve purchased eight at a time. That meant that our apartment sans storage had on hand four rolls of toilet paper and sixty-four cans of LaCroix.

Priorities.

Growing up in Colorado, I didn’t drink seltzer. Nobody did. (Not so anymore, I bet. Thanks, Mary H.K. Choi.) Whenever it was forced upon me, my throat felt on fire.

But now…my kids drink it! We call it “spicy water.” Eighteen-month-old Colton calls it “bash.” (You can see toddler verbal manipulation: spicy water = spash wa-wa = bash.)

But there’s no burn with pamplemousse. People: you just don’t understand. At night, when the kids go to sleep, I’m equally prone to opening a can of seltzer as I am to opening a beer. Full satisfaction comes from a cheap can of seltzer with “natural flavor.” It is glorious; subtle flavor, titillating bubbles.

I’ve easily drunk five a night.

The enviro in me feels a guilty as my recycling bin fills with pink can after pink can of my grapefruit fizzy water.

But guilt washes away with my first four gulps of pamplemousse (that don’t burn, merely titillate).

And don’t Debby-downer me – I conducted a highly scientific google search for the link between carbonation and calcium leaching. My lost sleep is better spent on Game of Thrones.

The pleasure I get from guzzling these pink cans of perfection are bright lights on some dark parenting days.

Mary H.K. Choi is right. But she let the secret out of the box, off of the bottom aisle in Target, and out of the “in-club”. Thanks a lot, @choitotheworld , for being a drink follower, a water wannabe, a carbonated con.

And thank you to Mary H.K. Choi for demonstrating that silly posts like this are the equivalent of editorial journalism.