Today, for the first time in a long time, I had heartburn.
I object. I am way too young for this. Young people are supposedly to be ridiculously healthy all the time. I'm supposed to feel and look fabulous 24/7 until I turn like thirty or something, right? My body obviously needs to get with the program.
It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten what it felt like. Ack. Almost... too bad I didn't get to totally forget. I could have gone for that.
When my head ache makes the floor look like it's moving, I know this could well be a baby migraine. (Oh. Migraines. I'll take heartburn any day.) So, in haste, I find some pain reliever to nip it at the bud. Fast. When I have heartburn, it can mean one of two things. One, it's going to be a mildly unpleasant day or two, Anna is going to be violently ill. (Thankfully, I think this one was the former.) In the case of heartburn... I must choke down a anti-acid.
I loathe anti-acids. The powdery texture is so thoroughly nauseating. Why would they make a medicine that is supposed to help you with your stomach ache so truly vile? If I can get it down without gagging, we're home free, baby! If not... well... it's not a good thing.
So. I had heartburn. It was mild. There was hope. But I had to act quickly. I meandered to the medicine cabinet. Stalling sort of, kind of totally on purpose. I found the bottle of anti-acids and peered in. They looked so evil. They smelled even worse. I grimaced.
Ewww... do I have too?
Shall we consider the options? A few seconds of agony, or the possiblity of a few days in agony?
Well. When you put it that way...but they are so disgusting.
Shush. Just eat them.
Yuck.
I'm not disagreeing, but it's got to be done.
Fiiine...
I selected two. Purple. Smelly. Evil. Vile. I looked at them, lying in wait. Sitting innocently on my palm, waiting to torture my taste buds.
I got a glass of water. If I was going to have to taste them, I was going to have something to wash it down with.
One... two... three...
First bite.
Oh yeah. They are so disgusting.
Yep.
Ack! Bluck! Ick! Eww! Chew faster! It's getting stuck in my teeth!
Swallow...swallow... YES! Done!!
Yuck.
Obviously, I survived. And I live to fight heartburn and anti-acids another day.
Although I sincerely hope I don't have too.
Showing posts with label gross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gross. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Sickly Sweet Childhood Memories
The following is one of, if not my all time, favorite childhood memories.
My younger sister, Clare and I, were outside playing on one of those winter days where it is warm and sunny, even though there is a good several inch layer of snow on the ground. On this particular day, we were getting along pretty well. Which, for us, meant only trying to assassinate the other once or twice.
We squabbled famously until this year. I finally broke down and matured, I guess. She's my closest sibling, as we are a little over a year apart. When this story takes place, I believe we are about ten and nine, respectively, perhaps a little younger.
Any way, on this lovely winter day, we happened to venture out by the gravel road of our rural home and lo and behold! A half emptied bottle of Pepsi- all alone and unguarded, just waiting for two lucky kids like us! We were thrilled to find that this bottle of the ever coveted carbonated treat was still two thirds full, and after some deliberation, we decided the benefits of free soda far outweighed the risks of someone elses backwash.
On a normal day, we would have fought like cats and dogs over the soda, causing such a stir that my Mother would have come outside to see what all the fuss was about and confiscated our prize. However, the stars were in harmonious alignment that day, and we agreed to share it equally.
We were going over the nitty gritty details of how to split the soda properly when suddenly, inspiration struck. I don't recall whose idea this was, or if this was our intent from the very beginning, but we decided that the same good and kid-loving gods who had sent us this soda had also bestowed upon us a surplus of snow with which to mix it. (Slushies!!)
This presented the problem of how to blend the slushies. We weren't stupid, and we knew revealing our secret would result in either less slushie per person, or no slushie at all depending on who found us first, a sibling or a parent. Thus, we acted with great resourcefulness and efficiency in our covert operation, procuring an old dog dish (yes, it gets grosser) to hold the goods (which I declared, with older sisterly superiority, to be quite sanitary after sitting in a freezing snow bank. Germs freeze to death. Duh.)
Then we found some clean(ish) snow to put into the dog dish and then we poured our precious Pepsi on top. Finding a stick (which was also the very picture of sanitation after we picked most of the bark off of it), we stirred the slushie in song. Seriously. We made up a slushie song. Heck if I know how it went, but I distinctly remember singing. And stirring.
We used sticks to scoop the first spoo...I mean stickfuls into our mouths. We agreed that it was excellent and congratulated each other on our genius. It was then decided that such genius should be applied further and that the fruits of it's labor should be named.
We decided to call it, with the sweet, senseless logic of children, A C Cola, short for 'Anna and Clare's Cola' This was obviously the thing to call a snow saturated Pepsi product. It was perfect.
And so, we ate and made merry and declared it one of the best things we had ever eaten. (I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty darn good.) And dispite our twisted sanitation efforts, we both survived.
I love that memory... I know ya'll think I'm revolting, that's okay, it's true. But that memory so captures what I remember of being a kid. Freedom. Creativity. Simplicity. Innocence. Sure, in theory we knew it was gross to drink someone elses soda, that dog mouths are not clean and neither is what birds put on snow. So what? We did it anyway. And we loved it. We thought it was perfect.
And so, it was.
My younger sister, Clare and I, were outside playing on one of those winter days where it is warm and sunny, even though there is a good several inch layer of snow on the ground. On this particular day, we were getting along pretty well. Which, for us, meant only trying to assassinate the other once or twice.
We squabbled famously until this year. I finally broke down and matured, I guess. She's my closest sibling, as we are a little over a year apart. When this story takes place, I believe we are about ten and nine, respectively, perhaps a little younger.
Any way, on this lovely winter day, we happened to venture out by the gravel road of our rural home and lo and behold! A half emptied bottle of Pepsi- all alone and unguarded, just waiting for two lucky kids like us! We were thrilled to find that this bottle of the ever coveted carbonated treat was still two thirds full, and after some deliberation, we decided the benefits of free soda far outweighed the risks of someone elses backwash.
On a normal day, we would have fought like cats and dogs over the soda, causing such a stir that my Mother would have come outside to see what all the fuss was about and confiscated our prize. However, the stars were in harmonious alignment that day, and we agreed to share it equally.
We were going over the nitty gritty details of how to split the soda properly when suddenly, inspiration struck. I don't recall whose idea this was, or if this was our intent from the very beginning, but we decided that the same good and kid-loving gods who had sent us this soda had also bestowed upon us a surplus of snow with which to mix it. (Slushies!!)
This presented the problem of how to blend the slushies. We weren't stupid, and we knew revealing our secret would result in either less slushie per person, or no slushie at all depending on who found us first, a sibling or a parent. Thus, we acted with great resourcefulness and efficiency in our covert operation, procuring an old dog dish (yes, it gets grosser) to hold the goods (which I declared, with older sisterly superiority, to be quite sanitary after sitting in a freezing snow bank. Germs freeze to death. Duh.)
Then we found some clean(ish) snow to put into the dog dish and then we poured our precious Pepsi on top. Finding a stick (which was also the very picture of sanitation after we picked most of the bark off of it), we stirred the slushie in song. Seriously. We made up a slushie song. Heck if I know how it went, but I distinctly remember singing. And stirring.
We used sticks to scoop the first spoo...I mean stickfuls into our mouths. We agreed that it was excellent and congratulated each other on our genius. It was then decided that such genius should be applied further and that the fruits of it's labor should be named.
We decided to call it, with the sweet, senseless logic of children, A C Cola, short for 'Anna and Clare's Cola' This was obviously the thing to call a snow saturated Pepsi product. It was perfect.
And so, we ate and made merry and declared it one of the best things we had ever eaten. (I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty darn good.) And dispite our twisted sanitation efforts, we both survived.
I love that memory... I know ya'll think I'm revolting, that's okay, it's true. But that memory so captures what I remember of being a kid. Freedom. Creativity. Simplicity. Innocence. Sure, in theory we knew it was gross to drink someone elses soda, that dog mouths are not clean and neither is what birds put on snow. So what? We did it anyway. And we loved it. We thought it was perfect.
And so, it was.
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