there it is
perched on the end of your nose
one single, small drop of rain

not much to talk about,  you might think
but consider this

consider the word “sextillion”

I had to look it up

a sextillion is
one thousand million million million million million millions

or simply put

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

that’s a one with a lot of zeroes after it
may I assume we agree that a sextillion is a heck of a big number?

okay, what does sextillion have to do with a drop of water?

that drop of water on your beak contains more than a sextillion water molecules

really, more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of H2O

Super Wow! All that sitting on your proboscis

Wandering further into the weeds, consider this-

where do you think all those sextillion water molecules came from?

given that the earth is covered with over 71% water, it’s quite possible that that little water spot on your snout has H2O molecules from every ocean on the planet, and from trees in arctic tundras, leaves in Amazon jungles, and even a few from the lush, green grass of your local golf course. 

water is constantly doing its thing, evaporating and turning into vapor, floating around the earth in clouds, falling out of the sky as rain, sleet, and snow.

Water does a lot of moving around. True, there are places water seldom visits, like the Sahara, and there seem to be more and more such waterless lands lately. But, still, those sextillion molecules in front of your face represent a large amount of your planet.

If this is not jaw dropping enough, remember that the human body is, itself, 60% water and every day, all the time, our bodies are losing water vapor, water molecules to the atmosphere.

So that drop of rain on your muzzle, besides containing traveling molecules from all around Planet Earth, also contains H2O molecules that evaporated from the 8 billion or so human beings breathing right now.

that’s a helluva lot of humanity on your hooter

Best to stop here, you might be reconsidering that walk in the rain


Moral: Some things are best seen from a distance.


tio stib

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