So What de Crap?

My son drinks tea.

This is not to put him down, but I'm surprised. In some ways, he's a typical nineteen year old boy -- prefers to sleep late, spends lots of time playing video games, listening to loud music, and IMing on his computer -- often all at the same time. When he goes to Halo Two games, he slams down energy drink after energy drink. (I think his favorite is Rockstar.) He doesn't drink coffee, but he does drink colas. So he's far from being a nut for healthy drinking.

But he's really into tea. He'll go to Ta-lin Supermarket and come back with six or eight boxes of tea. His last trip, he bought several Yogi brand teas -- peppermint, stress relief, vitality -- a redbush chai, a Korean green tea, and his favorite Thai Tea. He even bought soy milk to make the hot chai taste right.

I'm not sure where he got this taste for tea. My husband and I drink coffee, my husband and daughter drink sodas, and only my son drinks tea. Maybe it's the time he spent with some Buddhist monks. He wasn't taking his studies seriously, so I pulled him out of school. I had no idea what to do with him. The monks said, "Bring him to the temple, and we'll teach him Thai. And we'll teach him respect for his parents." That day, they gave him his first phrase to learn in Thai -- a greeting. I can't write it in English (their letters are different) but I remembered it sounded like "So what de crap?"

He spent perhaps a week with them. I'm proud of my son for his willingness to try new things. He's even tried "cooking" (okay, you don't cook) sushi. But this tea thing -- sigh. So what the crap?