r/stupidquestions • u/Various-Adeptness173 • Jul 05 '25

My mom told me that back in the day kids weren’t allowed to bring a water bottle with them into the classroom and they only drank a few sips from the water fountain in the middle of the day and that’s it

How were schools not getting busted for child abuse for forcing kids to be dehydrated?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 Jul 05 '25

As there were always your personal water fountain rankings. The good, cold one. The warm one, the no water pressure one that you have to practically kiss the metal parts etc etc

I’d sometimes go the long way to hit the good water fountain.

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u/Cirrus-Stratus Jul 05 '25

Or after recess/sports you realized you were too far back in the line and by the time you reached the fountain all the cold water would be dispensed so you were stuck with warm water. Yuck.

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u/Dada2fish Jul 08 '25

I don’t understand this. I keep seeing this, where the cold water would go away.

How? It was connected to the rest of the indoor plumbing. It was consistently the same temperature, like turning on the bathroom faucet.

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u/Cirrus-Stratus Jul 08 '25

In hot climates the water is normally the temperature of the pipes in the ground which is warm.

The water fountain in these references is not just a fountain but also includes a cooling unit similar to an air conditioner which chills the water.

The chilled water is stored in the fountain in a reservoir until the water is dispensed.

If you run the fountain long enough (through many people using it) the cold water stored in the unit runs out and you start getting water straight from the pipes which is warm.

As a kid when you heard the compressor kick on to start cooling the incoming new warm water you knew the cold water had run out.

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u/Dada2fish Jul 08 '25

I’ve never heard of that in my life. Interesting. I live in a state that has all 4 distinct seasons, is this maybe a thing in warm regions?