Did I ever mention I run at noonish? Given my geographical lot in life, that means my summer runs vary between way too hot and oh my god just kill me now. Luckily, I don’t think it’s done too much damage to my brain.

I’ve been reading a lot about how to deal with the heat. The prevailing theory seems to be to drink a lot. This is a problem for me in that I work in a profession that no longer allows the whiskey bottle on the desk. What to do, Daddy-O? Mo came up with the perfect solution: Fred.

Fred is a water bottle. In the never-ending flood of water products, Fred’s niche is that he comes in a recyclable flask. I’ve never been big on drinking water unless it comes with nutrasweet, at least three kinds of acid and some bubbles. But come on, HIS NAME IS FRED! I love him.

I went to the website and read all the save the planet new way of drinking water blah blah fluffy mumbo jumbo. Whatever. IT’S A FLASK!!! At last I can walk around the newsroom, throwing back shots of water and mumbling about the good old days when deadlines were deader and Family Circus was funny. OK, I just made that second one up.

I took a big swig from Fred. And then another. We bonded. I had that moment of zen that Jon Stewart always alluded to shortly before they went to the late-night knife commercial. And then.

As I sat contentedly with Fred, sipping away, I read the back of the bottle.

“Natural spring water.” Lovely. “From Alpine springs.” Naturally. “In Rockland, NY.”

WHAT THE FOGHORN LEGHORN?????

Yes, I was drinking water from New York. Probably from the East River, which supplies the Alpine springs with its water source when not clogged up with corpses. I’m the guy in the Pace commercial happily eating his salsa when the cowpokes cry out “NEW YORK CITY???”

I will surely die. I ate the last of the bootleg Blue Bell in hopes that listeria would put me out of my misery, washed it down with a Shiner Prickly Pear and hoped for a quick death.

The moral: Never trust anyone named Fred, unless it’s 4 a.m. and you’re watching “I Love Lucy.” Never trust Mo. Cadmium in the meat loaf. You’d think I would learn.

But mostly, avoid Family Circus. Except maybe the ones where Billy swerves all over the place going somewhere. It reminds me of the way I run here when it’s hot.

Life is funny …