My Week With My Mason Jar

What is it about college students that makes us so thirsty? I’m not talking about the euphemistic kind of thirst (yeah, I see you)–I’m talking about this weirdly heightened (literal) bodily need to quench a parched throat during lecture. I mean, ask any college kid if they have a water bottle on them, and chances are they do. It’s kind of strange. Is stress correlated with thirst, or something? I ask this question because this week I was left without my most precious possession, which is my reusable water bottle. I left my bottle in a friend’s dorm and for trivial reasons (I’m lazy, she’s busy) it took about a week to get back to me. I have lost every kind of tumbler, to-go-cup, and “personal smoothie sports bottle” I have ever owned, and after leaving my water bottle in her room, all I was left with to transport my liquids was–you guessed it–a mason jar.

Oh, mason jars. There could be a whole other (long) post trying to trace the history of this fad, but let me just say that we are well into the Mason Jar Phase of the universe, and it’s here to stay. I strongly believe that using mason jars in the public sphere is dumb and pretentious. They are not practical and they are not unique. You are most definitely not a hipster if you use them and you are most likely not that passionate about the environment. My strong opinions on mason jars caused me to be very apprehensive about replacing my plastic bottle with a glass jar until I could once again reunite with my bookstore re-usable bae. I can now honestly say it was definitely an experience–a tragic and enchanting couple of days, much like Eddie Redmayne’s week with Michelle Williams.

Until recently, one of my intended concentrations was MCM (Modern Culture and Media Studies). This means that those hip, chain-smoking mason jar-using avant-gardes were my “peers.” I registered for an MCM seminar on feminism, art, and activism (of course) and on the first day of class my roommate and I noticed that every other person in the room, I swear to Bernie, was drinking out of a mason jar. I chuckled. I joked about how I would never be that kid. Little did I know…

The class has about twenty girls who all sport artistic notebooks, cool backpacks, and alternative hairstyles. Many of them have hipster glasses. Funny enough, I also wear glasses. They’re not hipster, but they are kind of like a pair a grandma or College-Aged Ted Cruz would wear. The day I brought my mason jar to class, I was also wearing my glasses, because my contacts were acting up and the universe is a cruel place. It was a sight to see, watching my fellow classmates and I talk about how to best dismantle the patriarchy while sliding our bohemian frames up our noses and sipping tea from our eco-conscious containers.

Aside from being parodies of ourselves, a thing I still don’t understand is why we use mason jars for the most inconvenient liquids? One of the girls in class had to wrap her jar in a scarf–not a “cozy”, but an actual large (infinity?), knit scarf–to be able to hold her hot coffee. This jar is thus warmer than some Rhode Island folk and much more fashionable than me.

By the next day, I was a little more comfortable with taking Mason (the natural name for my jar) with me to lecture. In the MCM seminar, I was drinking from the jar under the table in the hopes that nobody would see me pretend to be cool. In lecture, I was sure nobody would notice me and I drank my water with ease.

But there was now a new obstacle. Mason jars are glass. Do people forget that? Because it’s absolutely terrifying to walk, sit, and set down your bag while people are running around in a crowded auditorium. I kept checking that the jar hadn’t broken. I worried that it would spill all over my backpack and ruin my computer. I was uneasy as I reached into the pocket where I kept the jar, fearing I would cut myself with glass. So, although I felt more comfortable drinking from the jar in public, I still wasn’t 100% on board.

The third day, I was openly telling people that I was drinking from a mason jar. I had already confessed to my close friends what I was doing for the week, but I was now telling even acquaintances that I was “trying out the mason jar thing.”

The last day, as I was filling up my jar at the Blue Room before class, I felt a little nostalgic. Filling up my jar was becoming routine, and there was just something special about drinking from Mason, like I could do anything, or be whoever I wanted to be. I could really own a refurbished coffee shop in Williamsburg, eat kale for breakfast, or pin things on Pinterest. I felt hopeful.

In the end, an idea I once hated with a passion became a bittersweet thing, bringing me moments I will always treasure. It’s kind of like in a movie or  TV show when two enemies are forced to bond, and though they will never actually be friends, they will always share that special time.

The bottom line? Mason jar users: I get it. Carrying life-giving liquids in glass recipients is sort of nice. Or then again maybe you just like to be a douche.

*Disclaimer: If you’re in my MCM class and read this article, then I hope you didn’t feel offended and instead realized that you are actually just cooler than me.

Image via.