Featuring Sprite As My Emotional Support Beverage
Plus, this week's hit and miss lead to dunking my face and dunking on McDonald's innovation.
As it does, the internet recently shuffled into my awareness a new “recipe” for a drink popular in parts of Korea and Japan. It’s called Milkis or Calpico and it is recreated by mixing a small amount of milk into Sprite. A baby lives in my home so I always have milk access and I relish an excuse to buy Sprite. The mixture was JUST OKAY (it makes sense when you think about root beer float popularity) but brought to mind the Sprites of the past that have brought me comfort and joy. In fact, this beverage has frequently been the cap atop many of my neediest and most celebratory moments.
The One After We Got Lost
I was visiting my friend, Jolene, in Duluth when she was doing research for her graduate program thesis. One of the tasks included driving to a few nearby wooded locations to search for lingonberries. Because I am always down for a micro adventure, I agreed to tag along with her and another friend.
We filed out of the car at the first location and found the berries right near the road. When we parked at our second spot, we exited the car with confidence as we began another search. It was autumn so we were wearing light jackets. I carried a half-filled water bottle and some crumpled tissues, as I’d been sniffly earlier in the week. We walked through a forest with nothing that resembled a trail. Keeping our eyes to the ground for lingonberries, we high stepped and pushed our way through countless branches of baby deciduous trees as larger ones loomed over us.
We were finally successful in our quest, and Jolene made necessary lingonberry notations as we prepared to return to the car. An hour or so later, we realized we had no idea if we were headed towards the car or not. We looked for the familiar, hoping we would recognize the route back. We tried walking towards a pre-selected tree in the distance to ensure we were traveling in a consistent direction. It was easier said than done without a path. I pathetically patted my nose with the overly-used Kleenex. There was little water left. We didn’t have any means to communicate with anyone. And not even a snack. At one point, we spotted a house. Nervous to alarm the owner but also of what we might encounter, we mulled over what we would say when we knocked on the door. When we got closer, we realized it was a tree covered in yellow leaves and not a house at all. Horrified by this mind trick, the mood darkened further.
“This is how people DIE,” Jolene exclaimed after we had all been trying to not say that exact thing since we’d noticed we were lost.
“Let’s go at a sustainable pace,” she insisted as I frantically clawed my way through more branches.
“THIS IS A SUSTAINABLE PACE,” I snapped.
Eventually, the sun started to go down. I panicked. I thought about my current boyfriend, an idiot who smoked too many cigarettes and used the R word casually. I pictured the disapproval of my friends and family when he showed up to my funeral. We walked straight towards the sun and finally emerged at the road. We found the car and drove to McDonald’s. I ordered a Sprite and I recall so vividly being revitalized and comforted by its crispness. When I returned home after the weekend, I broke up with my boyfriend.
The One After The Half Marathon
One spring, I decided to try being someone that runs. Billy Blanks from Tae Bo taught me how to punch. It felt like if I could run away from predators, I would be golden. And I thought it would make me skinny. I’m not proud.
I signed up to run the Gary Bjorklund half marathon since I had watched participants run it most years I lived in Duluth. I’ve always needed a hard deadline to scare me into commitment. I felt my lung capacity improve, but I experienced more body image issues during this time than I ever had in the past. I jogged on the treadmill, fantasizing about breaking my leg so no one would judge me for quitting.
The day before the half marathon, I went out and bought a completely new outfit and runner’s accessories. It was as if I was readying for my first day of school and not a strenuous physical activity for which I should be comfortable. I slept so soundly the night before, knowing I only had to wake up and go through the motions. Then I could say I’d accomplished something.
When I got off the bus that transported us to the starting line, I was surprised by many casually meandering. I tried to hide my panic, shuffling between portable toilet lines. As if it would make the difference in my completion time, I tried to time my last bathroom break perfectly. “No one can tell this is your first time,” I told myself as I peed. But I was wrong.
The first half of the run was almost bliss. Fog hovered over Lake Superior and the crisp morning air felt incredible on my skin. There were very few spectators. Then the second half of the run began, and a self-consciousness descended upon me. At least I got to visit the snack tables. In years past, I had long admired the tables of pickles, Dixie cups of Gatorade, and energy goo in what looked like ketchup packets offered to runners. I swiped it all. I slurped from my energy-ketchup-packet thing. I pictured it hitting my tongue and allowing me to run a hundred miles an hour.
Then it happened. People were clapping specifically for me. “You’re doing great,” an elderly man gave me a thumbs up. I was really flattered for a minute. Maybe I was making it look easy. But as the pointed compliments continued, it became clear. I had forgotten that I look pathetic while exercising. I quit the basketball team in seventh grade because a classmate pointed out my excessively red face after a practice. Plus, I was bad at basketball. It all came back to me.
No one was waiting for me at the finish line. I didn’t cry as I thought I might. Jock Jams blasted through giant speakers as I walked silently to a tent where I received a t-shirt. At another tent, I collected a bag of chips and a Sprite. I sat alone on a curb and opened the Sprite. I felt the bubbles bring me back to life. I knew I’d never run literally ever again. And I haven’t.
The One Right After Giving Birth
As it is for many owners of vaginas, I spent the first twenty something years of my life terrified of pregnancy. But the second I became a wedded woman, I buzzed with possibility. By traditionalists standards even, I could now become a mom. Weeks before Covid would become our darkest cloud, I peed on the stick that changed it all. We knew so little about the Coronavirus when things started to shut down, but I felt the doom in every part of me.
I felt certain my birth would be traumatizing. I tried to combat this by picturing myself powerful and joyous in the birthing process, like a deer with a flower crown in a ray of sunshine. That’s how hard I was trying to convince myself that this could be totally okay. When a close friend told me about her first birth experience, taking a nap with an epidural and pushing less than an hour, a voice in the back of my mind told me I was in for a dissimilar case.
The night I went into labor, my husband and I took a late-night walk. I looked up at the moon and knew it would be the last time before I was eternally split in two. I readied for bed, showering and playing an episode of The Office on my phone before I shut my eyes. I don’t know how much longer it was before I was awakened, but The Office was still playing when I felt a leak between my legs. In the days before baby, screaming in the house after 8pm was still permitted so I yelled from the top of the steps that things were happening.
We drove to the hospital and were checked right in. The new Mr. Rogers movie with Tom Hanks played on the hospital television and I drifted in and out after the epidural was applied. The internet tricked my soft pregnancy mind into believing I needed to get my husband a gift for my laboring, so he opened that while I suffered. I looked at my phone for a moment. Alex Trebek had just died.
I started pushing. I looked at the clock and considered how long I could handle this. Hopefully less than an hour. Four hours later, a vacuum birth attempted, and finally a white flag flown, it was time to succumb to a C section. My nightmare was always a C section. I had been told many times my body was made for childbirth, and I had somehow failed with three decades’ prep and anticipation.
In the operating room, I moved side to side on the table as I was tugged from within. In the light above my head, I could make out a reflection of my lower body. I knew I should tell someone that I could see what was happening, but I morbidly delayed it. This might be the last opportunity I’d have to see my insides in real time.
My husband met my son first. They wrapped him and laid him on my neck so we could meet. It was hard to see him, and I didn’t know what to say while everyone was listening. My husband and son left the room together while I was sewed up. When I was wheeled to the other room, I asked for water and a Sprite. After the exertion and the drama of the previous twenty four hours, it was the best thing I had and probably will ever taste.
This Week’s Hit
Putting My Face In Ice Water – Like any good liberal millennial, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) brings me immense happiness and peace in mere existence. So I trusted her when she posted a video of herself dunking her face into ice cold water on her Instagram story this week. It also reminded me of Mommie Dearest’s opening scene, which I have thought about probably weekly since I first watched the movie twenty plus years ago. AOC’s reasoning for the ritual was that she was seeking out of a stressful mental cycle. Since that is my endless state of being AND I was just straight up intrigued, I decided to try it.
At first, I thought this must be only effective for those that live in warmer climates. I already accost my face with freezing temperatures on the daily without any intention or benefit to my knowledge. Regardless, I filled a bowl with water, added several ice cubes, and waited for the water to be peak chilly. I dunked my face into the cold and held it there for around ten seconds. When I resurfaced, I found myself immediately wanting to put my face back in. I would have been just as happy to write that I was skeptical as hell of this practice, so believe me when I say it really felt like a slate clearing to me. I’ve repeated it every day this week and likely will for a while.
This Week’s Miss
Eye Contact With McDonald’s New Item- This weekend, I saw a window cling advertisement for McDonald’s new Land, Air & Sea sandwich. It’s part Big Mac, part McChicken, and part Filet O Fish with all the toppings and condiments. As a lover of trash food, even I have to put my foot down.
This is the laziest thing I’ve ever seen McDonald’s do. I cringe thinking of the added stress upon underpaid McDonalds employees having to explain to consumers that one must order this monstrosity and then assemble themselves. And mashing all ingredients of a menu together as innovation is very Shameful Alyssa circa 2012. At the end of a booze-filled evening, I would often combine all remaining available alcoholic beverages for “efficiency,” take a pitiful sip, and discard somewhere to be repulsively discovered the next morning. I feel Ray Kroc, McDonald’s greatest “founder,” is rolling in his very GRAVE.