Caving

Blame it on the 99-degree weather (insane for here in April) and say my brain was sun-smacked. Works for me. There is a direct correlation between the thermometer shoving past 85 degrees, and my inability to function at a level much higher than that of a three-toed sloth after a sugar crash.

Or say that I was just lazy and allowed myself to be manipulated.

What is it about convenience stores that turns me, the normally proud pennystretcher, into this alternate personality who thinks it's fine to fork over 2 bucks for a 12-oz. Diet Something? I mean, I was only a half block from home, and cold water costs nothing. That buck-seventy-five could have gone into the babies' Christmas coin jar, or even scored a couple of pieces of cool scrapbooking paper. But no. I was definitely lusting for a cold, fizzy beverage and the store was just...there...so conveniently.

Heading to the cooler where my poison of choice is kept, I noticed another bottle that looked familiar-but-different, and it caught my attention. A new flavor, another variant of one I've enjoyed many, many times--and what's this? The label trumpeting "Amazingly Smooth!" (Or was it "Amazing Smoothness!" I forget...but it's one of those two.)

I don't know about you, but I don't normally associate the word "smooth" with soda pop. After-shower powder, maybe...400-count Egyptian cotton sheets, yes...Dove dark chocolate, certainly. But a carbonated drink...?

And behold! Not only was it smooth--but amazingly so! They promised!

For the briefest of moments I pictured bathing in the stuff, like Cleopatra in her asses' milk. This set off the kind of giggle that one rarely releases in public, particularly when wedged in between a clackety-loud corner store cooler and unopened cases of Seagram's and Cup o' Noodles. Then the knee-jerk reaction so obviously sought by the ad exec who first pitched the idea kicked in. I wondered how a smooth ice-cold one of these would taste and how it would be smooth going down my throat.

I had to find out.


Back in the days of Tyrannosaurus Rex and before color TV--the 50s and early 60s, when I was a child--cigarette commercials were aired frequently. I remember hearing how one's throat could be relieved by a certain brand's "smooth" properties. It was pre-Surgeon General's Report, and every adult I knew smoked except my Methodist grandma and my Sunday School teacher. Didn't They tell us that smoking was a normal adult activity, and could even help a sore throat feel better? All totally absurd now, of course, but what did we know?

And now, all these decades later, I am faced with an icy-cold but strange bottle screaming "I Am Amazingly Smooth!I'll be good to you, you'll feel so much better! Buy me! Drink me! Now!"

You know the rest. I plunked my money down and got my amazing cold drink. Because nothing tastes as good to me as extra-chilled soda on a hot day, I really did enjoy it. There was extra cherry flavor and no sugar, so how could I go wrong? It was even pretty good...pretty darn good!

But I'd been had. Smooth? SMOOTH? Where in Jumping Jack Flash was the smooth?

Somewhere a little New York ad agency weasel is laughing his/her fool head off at us yokels out here who bought into their campaign; which is, in the great tradition of advertising, most likely nothing more than a big hoax anyway. "Gee, I wonder if anybody's amazed yet...'I'm amazed! I'm amazing! Look upon me, and be awed by my great smoothness!' BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha!"

And I fell for it. I knew it was coming, and I caved anyway--with nothing in the least amazing or smooth to show for it

So now there's nothing left but to pitch the mocking empty bottle in the recycle bin, laugh about how silly I can be sometimes, and wonder...will I still respect myself in the morning?