Percentage of water in things.

Photo of two people representing a conversation.

     I was recently having a conversation with a friend about the percentage of water in things. Like, you know -- the percentage of water in a cucumber, or the percentage of water in a carrot, or the percentage of water in a human being. I had no clue as to how much water a cucumber consisted of, so I looked it up. According to the internet, a cucumber consists of 95% water. Huh? Didn't know that. I proceeded to look up how much water a carrot consists of. 90%. Wow. That's weird. And then I looked up how much water a human being consists of. 60%. Hold up, internet, just hold up right there -- I wont allow you to lie to me like this anymore.

A glass of wat....I mean a cucumber.

     I'm pretty baffled at the fact that a solid vegetable contains a near equal amount of water as my bathtub does when I take a bath at night (yes, I still take baths). Are they telling me that I can fill my tub up with cucumbers and take a bath? I'll try it sometime and let the internet know how that goes. During the summer, when we have water balloon fights, instead of filling them with water, I'll just jam some baby carrots in them -- they consist of 90 percent water, right? That's about the actual amount of water you can fit in one of those balloons. And myself? Sitting in this chair right here? It equals 60 percent water? Can I drown? Like, right now? That seems to be a lot of water floating around in me. Or is it not floating and does it just make up my bones and muscle and stuff? According to the internet, muscles are made up of 75% water. I'm guessing the other 25% is muscle? I don't know, I guess? Maybe the other 25% is water too?

This cucumber looks ripe. I mean the glass looks full.

     I don't think I believe any of this nonsense. So they mean to tell me that when I buy a cucumber I'm not actually buying a cucumber? I'm sorry, but the sign at the store said, "Cucumbers, 4 for a dollar." Not, "water."And when I eat a cucumber, I'm actually eating mostly water? Am I understanding this? My tap water doesn't even contain 95% water. Probably closer to 80% with the rest being dangerous and poisonous chemicals. Wait, wait, wait. Water doesn't contain 5% cucumber, does it? Cuz if it does, a lot of people have some explaining to do to me.

     I know they say that the Earth is made up of 75% water but is that taking into account all the cucumbers in the world? This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. If they take all the cucumbers, all the carrots, all the humans, and everything else that contains water into account, I'd be willing to bet that Earth is actually closer to 93% water, or maybe even more. I bet we're not even breathing air right now, we're all under water. And this keyboard I'm typing on? 78% water. How bout that sandwich I ate earlier? Woah, 100% water! Actually, wait, I didn't eat a sandwich earlier, I had a glass of water. I'm sorry, I confused the two.

Amount of water in this photo -- 86%

     Now, I can understand other beverages besides water containing water, because, you know, they're liquids. They need to use water as a base, and then flavor, carbonate, sweeten, and caffeinate the shit out of it. I understand that my sprite here contains 92% water, with the rest of it containing flavors and whatnot, because, you know, it's liquid. But what I don't understand is how a cucumber contains more water than a beverage like sprite. HOW THE HELL IS THAT POSSIBLE???!!! Why?! This is angering me now. It's actually making me mad. How can this be? Why would God let this happen? One is a drink and the other is a solid food but the solid food contains more water. This is as mind bending as that riddle, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" But then you realize that chickens are actually evolved dinosaurs and that there was no chicken that crossed the road, but it was an egg that rolled accross the road and it fell into a cucumber patch and it made a huge splash and then the egg hatched but the egg was mostly water, so the dinosaur was mostly water and it was all surrounded by water because everything is water. And that's what came first. Water.

How Many Licks Does it Take?

     How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?  I don't know.  Screw that boring, uninteresting question.  How many licks does it take to get to the center of the Earth?  Now that's a damn good question.  If your tongue and yourself had infinite life, I'd say it would take somewhere between 3 and 4 hundred billion years, which would put the licks somewhere in the "too hard to figure out because I suck at math" range.  If I started, right now, to try to lick my way to the center of the Earth, I'd probably last about 100 licks before my tongue started bleeding.

     But now a cat trying to lick it's way to the center of the Earth is a totally different question.  They have stronger, rougher tongues than us.  Which brings up another question.  How many licks does it take for a cat to get to the center of itself?  Wow.  Talk about a mind bender.  You'd think that for how much they lick themselves, one would have done it by now.  I think if a cat somehow got in an obsessive compulsive disorder type of loop while licking itself, it could happen.

     That commercial for Tootsie Pops just nipped the tiny edge of the iceberg.  There are so many more interesting things to lick to the center of.  I'd like to see Mr. Owl lick his way out of some kind of "Saw" like skull trap in a certain amount of time.  Because he was always so cocky in that commercial.  I'd like to see him get decapitated.  That lazy ass turtle isn't any better though.  He should be forced to lick his way to the center of a piece of shit.  But not just any piece of shit -- a Jupiter sized piece of shit that was shat out by God himself. 

     I mean, I don't know. There are so many things out there, I just want to see more commercials of that owl and turtle licking their way to the centers of things. An apple. An orange. A pear. A strawberry. A kangaroo. A muskrat. A pear. Oops, I already said that. A television set (one of those tube ones). A television set (one of those HD ones). A television set (one of those 3-D ones). A movie screen. A projector. Martin Sheen. A dvd copy of Turner and Hooch. A vhs copy of Turner and Hooch. The possibilities are endless!!! Even that sentence right there! How long would it take to lick your way to the center of the sentence, "the possibilities are endless!!!" These ideas are getting abstract. How many licks to the center of Victorian era sexual repression. How many licks to the center of Benjamin Franklin's thought process. How many licks to the center of a black hole's gravitational pull. 

      The most interesting question of all -- How many licks does it take to get to the center of the Internet?