Hal - Deliberately Basic

The High Science of Soda Pop

Certain things in life we certainly take for granted, carbonated water, or soda pop being one of them. We tend to think that teenagers who work as clerks, or are charged with taking our money when we pay the check at a restaurant are fully developed adult human beings. In fact, they are often not from earth at all, but illegal aliens from some distant galaxy who came here to work for substandard wages and converse in a strange language.

Due to some malformation of her esophagus, my wife cannot drink carbonated beverages. She cannot burp, and since both of us are put off by the possibility of her exploding in public, she drinks non-carbonated beverages. On occasion, she enjoys having a little beer or soda, if the soda can be flattened. For some reason beer does not have the same effect, taken in small quantities, and yes, flat soda is disgusting.

Over the years I watched her ask again and again if she can be served flat soda in a restaurant. The answer is always the same, they have to method of flattening soda other than to wait a couple of days, and ordinarily we don’t like to do that. Recently, we had an unusual experience with a young waitress about this. She had no idea what a carbonated beverage was.

I watched in awe as my wife attempted to explain to this young woman what makes soda pop fizzy. This gal had a touch of blond in her hair, but I think it was merely dyed. As a final resort, my wife reduced the conversation to baby talk, educating the girl with knowledge of “fizzy” and “no fizzy” drinks.
“You know, like iced-tea or lemonade… “
“Oh, you want iced-tea…”
“No, no, no. I want soda that is flattened, like iced-tea.”
“Ma’am, soda is different than iced-tea.”
“I know that. I want flattened soda”
“Should I call the manager?”
Exasperated look.
“No, just give me iced-tea.”

If this was an isolated incident we wouldn’t think much of it. But considering that we have had teens who were clueless about counting money, or making any decision other than from a scripted answer, we discussed this phenomena. Are teens today ignorant of the common mores assumed in our culture? Could it be that this is a generational issue and nothing more than our forgetting how stupid we were as teens?

These and other questions were brought up, turned, twisted, and wrangled with, but we didn’t reach a conclusion. I can see the future, that some day, this same girl will be agonizing how to explain iPods to someone who is her age now.

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