My alternative beverage lifestyle – let me show you it

So I’m a kid and I’m sick and have the classic cough and scratchy throat. That is, to me, the worst part of a cold: cough and scratchy throat. Little kid me is so frustrated with this long-time cough that I’ve decided (in the best example of 6 year old stubborn logic) that I am just NOT GOING TO COUGH ANY MORE! NOT GONNA! I HAVE SPOKEN! And so I hold my breath (because the first step of each cough is the attempt to breathe, silly me), but instead of no coughs I have several long minutes of tiny, stilted, choked off little sputter-coughs. And I also turn blue. And when I finally have to breathe it’s just aaaaaall cooouuuggghhss. Hack. Sputter. Stomp, stomp, kick the wall…

My mom, being smart in the way that moms are and that she especially is, wants me to drink some kind of warm drink for it would be soothing and helpful. The problem is that I don’t like warm drinks. Don’t like tea, don’t like apple cider, don’t like coffee (plus then all you really get is coughy, bug-eyed little me!), do like hot cocoa but only if made w/ milk, which is not helpful in this phlegmmy time. And no matter how helpful something might be, if I don’t like it I’m not going to eat or drink it. Not. So very, VERY not. I am stubborn, hear me roar. (and then coooough and cooooough…)

So my mom, seeing me trying to cure a cough through sheer force of will and having that mom-gene of “I will fix it, for it is my child and I will fix it!”, my mom turns to her Midwestern roots and she makes me a mug of Jello water.

Mmmmm. Jello water.

Jello water, for those of you who don’t put Miracle Whip on your white bread/turkey sandwiches or top your Tuna Casserole with Velveeta, is made with a box of Jello and 3 cups of hot water and only 1 cup of cold water. And you make it in a pitcher instead of a bowl, and you serve it in mugs. It’s hot and fruity and coats and soothes and totally solved every sore throat I remember having my whole life.

OK, now shoot through time with that woodle-woodle-woodle screen shimmer thing from tv and suddenly it’s this week. I have a cold with a whopper of a sore throat (courtesy of cough-cough-hack-choke-cooooooooough!) and I’ve got a big pitcher of Jello water, for medicinal purposes, sitting on my desk. Black cherry flavor. Which, coincidentally, looks just like blood when sitting in a pitcher. Or a mug. Or coating one’s lips. And I mentioned before that it’s warm, right? So here I sit, drinking my medicinal, blood-colored mystery drink. And as each person asks what I am drinking I explain that I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. No, it’s confidential and I don’t want to talk about it, and get away from that! Get away from my,… medicine!!! (mmm, tasty, thick and warm…)

Drinking tea has never been this much fun, people. (cough, cough, cough…)