Reid About It

Forgive me, friends, I have fallen prey to peer pressure. Long having been a staunch advocate of the dark, bubbly, carbonated beverages, I succumbed to temptation and bought for the first time, a "fruit smoothie."

A guy from work was going to pick up some for everybody else, so I said sure, I'll try one. I had no idea what to order, so I just said "whatever you guys are having."

He returned with 40 ounces of an alleged beverage with some strange name that implied health and energy, like "Big Range Extremejello" or "PowerPunchPummelPants" or something.

To begin with, it's not exactly a beverage. It's neither solid nor liquid, closer to some form of plasma. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to expel this matter from my body.

The taste was hard to describe, it seemed to be made up of every fruit imaginable mixed in random amounts. Then, add bark, leaves, shell, stem, and roots, and you've got health, my friend. It tasted like I was trying to drink 40 ounces of rain forest.

The first taste was quizzical, and unpleasant. It got slightly better as I tried again and again, pausing only to chew back another mouthful, and examine my mouth for the leftover pieces of debris.

So I drank more than my share, only to open the lid and find out I had finished about a third of it. The final part of the smoothie I used later to mortar some bricks in a retaining wall I'm building.

I know everybody else in the world loves these things, I just don't get it. Anytime I pay eight dollars for a drink, I don't expect it to have bits of bark and leaves in it, and I imagine it would at least taste pleasant. I need some bubbles in my beverage. A friend of mine loves them, she says she drinks them instead of meals sometimes. I can only assume that's because by the time you finish chewing down this smoothie, you've finished a drink, a meal, and a workout.

Next time, I'll just drink a 40 ounce of paint, it's cheaper, and actually smoother.