I recently blogged about how Evelyn and I enjoy Friday lunches together, and even shared an adventure or two about such food fiestas or "meals," as some are in the habit of calling them. I like to make them sound more interesting (or dramatic) than that, but whatever floats your boat.
A few months ago, we were on such an excursion deep into the world of Taco Bell - as I mentioned it is one of our favorite places to dine together - when I realized I did not ask for juice for my daughter. In fact, I forgot to order a drink at all. So, being the great parent I am (insert eye-roll and sarcastic inflection to your reading voice here), I decided to share my beverage with Evelyn.
I had remembered a "sippy" cup, and so poured part of my tasty Mountain Dew into this small container and shared it with my offspring.
The following may, or may not, have happened. It depends on how likely you are to believe in my abilities to over-react and over-dramatize situations. It probably also depends on how well you know me, or my kid. It also depends on how much I will admit is true under oath.
But honestly, this is how it went down.
Evelyn was eating two cheese roll-ups with cinnamon twists. This is her favorite thing in the world to eat. A hungry Evie will go through a cheese roll-up faster than a herd of starving pigs will eat a human. You think that's a silly analogy, but Google that sometime and when you're down throwing up, come back to me. And always be nice to any man you know that owns a pig farm.
On this particular day, however, she took her time. I noticed more and more, I had to put some of my own drink into her cup. It was like she couldn't get enough Dew. She started getting a little hyper at first, and I thought, "Man, this may have been a bad idea."
Then, I got scared.
She started shifting her head to one side. Tilting her eyes around as if she was trying to see around some invisible barrier to something else only she was able to see. She began lifting her hands over her face and peeping around them.
I have never been "high" or used any narcotic of any kind, so how would I know what someone who is high truly looks/acts like when they are, as my dad would put it, "tripping out?"
I assume they look something like my daughter did at that moment. I started freaking out thinking, "Oh man, she's never getting Mountain Dew again," "What am I going to do if she's really getting too much sugar here?" and "Dear God, please don't let her overdose or something!"
Then I heard a laugh behind me. No. Not a laugh. A cackle. The kind of crackling chuckle you hear from a woman who rides broomsticks and gets houses dropped on her by little girls from Kansas. You know, the creepy witch laugh that usually gets followed by "boil broil toil and trouble" and the like.
I slowly turned my head to see this little old lady playing peek-a-boo from halfway across the restaurant with my kid.
My panic subsided, replaced by relief and a little anger - mostly directed at myself for the ridiculous overreaction. And a little at this green-skinned goblin woman who had hypnotized my kid in her drug induced state.
Needless to say, the lady was actually nice (then again, she probably lived in a gingerbread house and was hoping I'd drop my kid off someday for a "snack"), and commented on how cute my daughter was. Obviously she left before we did, no doubt clicking her heels and jumping onto her broomstick.
Evelyn really just seemed to enjoy the Mountain Dew, had a small sugar rush, and went down for her nap pretty easily about an hour later.
But that's the last time I gave her anything with Caffeine in it.
Ever.
