As you’re sitting around the table at a restaurant, the server walks by and asks you the most infuriating question of the evening: “sparkling or still?” To any rational person, the correct answer would obviously be still water.

 As you watch the server pour the hydrating glory of still water, your heart feels content knowing that you just saved money by passing on crappy carbonated water.

Not only is still water much cheaper — being free at every establishment  — but it also objectively tastes exponentially better than sparkling water.

In the case of sparkling water, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Just as both Pomegranate juice and chicken noodle soup are delicious separately, a combination of the two will result in a questionably textured mixture of sweet, sour and salty flavors that just do not blend. In the same way, while Coca Cola tastes delicious and water tastes delicious, mixing the sparkling nature of Coca Cola with water just ruins the comfort water brings as a reliable, hydrating and refreshing drink. 

Sparkling water also doesn’t taste very different from water except that the texture feels different because of the bubbles. 

Sparkling water by La Croix is also just a flat-out scam. Bringing La Croix to a party is like offering people a bottle of water ruined with carbonated bubbles and the scent of fruits, with barely more flavor than the wrapper of a Hi-Chew.

Sparkling water is one beverage that you should never choose, whether at restaurants or your local Safeway. Bubbles are fine, water is fine, but bubbles in water are just not natural.