Boone's Drink Choices

Lest anyone think my son, Boone, is a health nut because of his interest in various teas (as I described in an earlier blog) I've got to say this.

I went with Boone to Ta-Lin International Supermarket yesterday. I just followed him as he wandered through the aisles and picked up this and that. When we got into Boone's pickup, I had the groceries in my lap. Boone was already opening up one of the drinks he'd gotten. He was so excited about it because it required a strange method to open. You separate one part of the lid from another part, reverse it, and push down on the marble embedded in the bottom part of the lid, thus popping the marble into the bottle and opening it. The bottle was pinched a few inches down from the neck (it reminded me of those melted and stretched bottles that my grandma used to make.)

I laughed at him and asked the obvious question -- what's the flavor? He didn't know, didn't care. So I checked out the ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, and citric flavoring.

That got me to checking out the other drinks Boone had bought -- a nice variety of energy drinks (he was thinking ahead to that night when he would have to work through the night.) They all had sugar and caffeine along with pretty much the same combinations of chemicals and preservatives, and all were made in Thailand (but marketed in various countries). One of the drinks had "titanium somethingide" and then "no artificial colors." Boone said, "I certainly wouldn't want any artificial colors with my titanium somethingide."

The brand names and packaging made it clear these were for extreme energy. The word SHARK had teeth, the M150 drink (sounds like a bomb to me) was dressed in red and yellow, "Lacosade" a huge bottle shaped like an orange missle -- all growled with barely contained masculine power. . . and then there was a can of chrysanthemum drink. WHAT?

Seriously. Chrysanthemum drink. Not a soda. Not an energy drink. Not a tea. Just a drink made from chrysanthemums! That's my son for you. He likes to try new things!