To those Gullible Geniuses we love.

There's something beautiful about a man who could be tricked by his buddies, laugh at himself, and still possess more common sense than the rest of us combined. Formal education was not his thing—he always left the room when I watched PBS, especially In Search Of. But he had street smarts he usually knew when someone was full of shit. That is, unless that someone was one of his oldest friends pulling a prank.

The Great Voice Conspiracy

My earliest lessons about my dad's gullibility: His friends convinced him that we don't hear ourselves when we speak.

Not the "you hear it differently through your bones and skull" phenomenon. No—they told him we don't hear ourselves at all. They claimed that what we think we hear is merely predicting what we said, because we already know what we're trying to say. No sound. Just... expectations.

And he believed them.

He spent that week wandering around the house, talking to himself and trying to catch his own voice in the act, like a dog chasing its tail. This was the same man who could swap out a car engine without cracking a manual and fix a water heater with just a paperclip and a prayer.

The Modern Gullibility

Flash forward to today, for most of my adult life, I’ve heard some version of:

“We’re drinking dinosaur piss. All water is recycled. Every drop has been through countless bladders and bowels.”

It sounds cool when you first hear it. Poetic even, some Circle of Life shit. After convincing others that this is at least plausible, something about that story always felt just a little too… simple.

So I did what Dad never would have done—even if he’d had an iPhone—I asked ChatGPT to explain it. My question was simple: "Are we drinking dinosaur piss?" My ChatGPT's answer: Not really. But kinda. But actually, no. As a thorough and patient teacher, my ChatGPT guided me through it.

Water is ancient. The water on Earth has existed for billions of years. It remains trapped in Earth's system—it doesn't escape to space, nor do we receive new water from elsewhere. The molecules that existed during the age of the dinosaurs are still here.

But water changes constantly. Water moves through the hydrologic cycle, comprising evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. During each phase, physical processes and microbes filter out impurities (including urine, feces, blood, and yes, dinosaur pee).

Urine and other waste break down. Bacteria decompose organic compounds in urine into harmless substances. The remainder either evaporates or filters through soil and rock, where it undergoes further purification.

Molecules mix and remix endlessly. While your glass of water might contain hydrogen or oxygen atoms that were once part of a dinosaur's urine molecule, don't worry—you won't find a preserved splash of T. rex pee in your bottle of Fiji.

So, are you drinking dinosaur piss?

You’re drinking water that has been around since the time of dinosaurs, but not their actual piss. The molecules have been scrubbed, transformed, and reused countless times. It’s not gross. It’s awesome.

What is gross? We’re drinking microplastics and fecal matter (it seems that my ChatGPT knows I always want to learn more).

• Microplastics: You have heard the studies. Here's a fun fact: on average, we eat about a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.
• Fecal contamination: Although many municipal water supplies are rigorously tested, accidents can still occur. We have boil-water advisories for good reasons. And I said, many, not all. And if you are not near a municipality? (OK, I am not going to put the obvious punch line here, you know what it is.)

So while we are not guzzling brontosaurus piss, we might be drinking fragments of a yoga mat and a microscopic turd from a factory pig farm.

Dad would have laughed at that.

The Point of It All

On Father’s Day, don’t just remember your dad for his wisdom. Remember the things that made him weird. And the gifts you received from him that made you who you are today.

So here’s to our dads.

And a reminder to us all: we live in the digital age. Stories that aren't digitized or shared repeatedly will fade away. If we don't tell our parents' stories, they'll be lost forever.