1318 The ubiquitous plastic water bottle

Although I don't recall when I first attended a public musical or dramatic performance, I can recall them as a pre-schooler. At church I watched the choirs perform at the Forreston Lutheran Church and the Mt. Morris Church of the Brethren; I attended concerts and watched musicians in the band shell in our little village at age 3 or 4; I sat in the audience at my sister's recitals; I cheered from the sidelines as the high school band performed at football and basketball games; I myself performed as a child with my siblings (we were an early version of the Jackson Five, but we were white and there were four of us); I sang in a ladies quartet and choral group and played first chair trombone in the band; I attended many programs of music and drama during high school and college; I acted in a few little productions as a student; and as an adult I've paid out a small fortune for tickets to on the road Broadway productions, picnic with the pops, community theater, and the last 31 years, have spent many hours at Hoover Auditorium here at Lakeside watching every imaginable singing, dancing, performing and dramatic hopeful who makes a living at the smaller venues of America.

But it has only been in the last 5 years or so that every performer seems to need to bring a plastic water bottle on stage. Am I the only one who thinks this looks really tacky--to turn your back on the audience and take a swig? What accounts for this surge in thirst?