It took me about a second to figure out I’d picked up the wrong glass. Now what?

When I’m in my office, I drink anywhere from four cups to six cups of water a day. A friend (a four liter per day hydrator) chides me for this (“you should drink more!”) but I’m not a natural drinker. I could happily go through a day with one to two cups. So, I have to remind myself to drink.

To that end, I’ll typically have three 12-ounce water glasses in different locations in the office – one on my desk, one on a bookcase outside my office, one in the office kitchen – so that, when I see one of them, I drink. This “see something, drink something” strategy works pretty well for me. Most days, I’ll gag down the six cups of water by closing time. Job well done.

A week ago Friday, while performing the end-of-the-week cleaning in the kitchen, I filled one of my water glasses with hot water, added a little clear Ecos grapefruit-scented plant-based dish soap, and put three spoons and a couple of forks in the hot water to soak. After wiping down the counter and completing the cleaning, I removed the cutlery (NB: That’s the correct word, I looked it up) from the glass, finished cleaning them, and put them aside to dry.

I thought, “I’ll just leave that soapy water there in the glass; I’ll have other utensils to clean later today.” [You can see where this is going, now, yes?]

I went back to my desk and worked for a couple of hours, then headed to the kitchen for a snack. Spotting a glass of water on the kitchen counter, I picked it up, drew a mouthful of water, and swallowed. Feeling a burn in my throat and noticing a little grapefruit smell, it took me about a second to realize I’d picked up the wrong glass… the soapy water. Now what?

Racing back to my desk, I Googled “What to do drink dish…”. I was encouraged to note that Google immediately filled in the rest, “…soap accidentally.” Good to know I was not the first.

Thinking I’d consumed less than a half-teaspoon of soap, I scanned quickly past the “Call the Poison Center…Go to the Emergency Room” exhortations and found, “The only thing a little dish soap would do is make you throw up. Your stomach is very acidic and soap is a base. Mix the two together, and they don’t like each other….”

I filled a fresh glass with water, gulped it down, and waited.

That night I had a dream, seeing this from the perspective of the “good” water glass. Two glasses on the counter, side by side; they look exactly alike. The water glasses see their human come into the kitchen; he reaches for the soapy water glass. In the dream, the good water glass shouts, “No, no, not that one, it looks OK but it’ll bad for you.” The human can’t hear this, of course, and, seeing no difference between the two glasses, takes a big gulp from the soapy glass.

Nick Miller is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. He assists banks and credit unions to generate more and more profitable relationships, faster, with business clients, their owners, and their employees through better sales strategies and execution. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.