Shhh! Top secret: How to get sparkling water at Chipotle

If you let the smallest of joys loom large in your life, what might those large joys bring?

Or ponder: do you even need or want the larger joys?

Sparkling water at a fast-food restaurant? Just out of the soda fountain? How is it possible? Please don’t burst my bubble of exploratory journalism (and possibly not-so-quick sleuthing skills) and tell me that all little buttons on all soda dispensers in all fast food restaurants have sparkling water.

Traveling with Dhamma brother Dag Strømberg (of the extremely intriguing Head Factory) after 10 days of silent meditation, we stopped in merciless Merced, California to show him the latest in fresh California cuisine: Chipotle. The over-the-top friendly and helpful guy behind the counter educated my foreign friend in the intricacies of Chipotle Culture, topped off his 7,000+ mile trek with a free bag of chips and guacamole, and, wait for it, wait for it, told us about the secret “Soda” lever in the soft drink dispenser that flowed endless supplies of clear sparkling, mountain fresh water.

Maybe it was 10 days without sparkling anything, 10 nights of silence, 10 days of self and more self. “Did you want a side of self with that super size order of self?” But somehow, in the parking lot in Merced, with a view of Sears, under the November sun, we sipped paper cup after paper cup of sparkling goodness that nourished our bodies and replenished our souls.

Beyond the soda button, here’s the real secret: if the smallest of joys fill your life, they’ll domino and you’ll have more and more, they’ll appear unexpectedly and, caution, caution, spoiler alert: you won’t care about the (so-called) big joys. The small joys will keep you busy, keep you smiling, and keep you going until the next small joy, which might just be a burrito bowl at Chipotle.

Did you know that behind that little “Soda” button is fresh, sparkling water? Ah, the joy.