McAlister's Monday

Ah, Monday. The beginning of the week. The reminder that I have to work for a living. The most evil of all days....well, really you aren't ALL bad. You're just a day, after all, and besides I almost always go to McAlister's on Monday so I almost always have that to look forward to. So, see? You're not ALL bad, you're just not as good as say, a Friday or a Saturday, but you'll do.

A couple months ago I wrote about my love for McAlister's Tea. Specifically unsweet tea with no lemon or as I like to say: Tea, straight up, on the rocks, no lemon. Now, being from The South or close to The South, anyway, you would think I would be all over the sweet tea, but sweet tea is right up there with lettuce in my book. The hatred I feel for it is deep and knows no bounds.

Why does it know no bounds? It's your lucky day because I'm here to tell you!

First, I would just like to say that the amount of sugar which goes into the making of tea to make it sweet is utterly ridiculous, and in my personal professional opinion if someone is going to drink something with a pound of sugar in it they might as well drink a full flavored soda (for those of you who don't speak Amanda-ese, that means non-diet) or one of those nasty energy drinks or a melted Popsicle in a glass.

So this one time...not at band camp I was spending the night at a friends house. Her name was Misty and she lived across the street from my grandma. She was older than me and like so totally cool with her acid washed jeans, oversized t-shirts, neon scrunchies, and crimped hair. I would beg my grandma to let me spend the night with her before we would leave on our Summer harvesting excursions and be gone for 3 months (I really need to make a point of telling that story so people won't think my parents ignored me for months on end). Well, one evening I head on over to Misty's house and she asks me if I would like a drink. Since I didn't want to be rude and I'm always thirsty, I said, "sure!"

What you need to know before I continue is that my entire family drinks unsweet tea. My grandma's on both sides make unsweet tea and my parents make unsweet tea and I make unsweet tea. We're just one big family of unsweet tea makers/drinkers.

Misty hands me this big glass of iced tea and I take a huge gulp. Yum! My little heart soared. I had never tasted anything so delicious in all of my years. After I inhaled the whole glass I asked her what it was and she said, "sweet tea, of course." My brain did not comprehend what she was saying. "What is sweet tea?" I asked so she told me, "you brew the tea like usual and then add sugar making it sweet." I couldn't believe how easy it was to make this amazing beverage. I wanted more and more and more. I drank sweet tea that night until I was floating in it. And then I went back to grandma's house and proceeded to make my own sweet tea.

But, I didn't know the proper measurements...

First, I poured what was probably 20 ounces of regular tea.

Then I began to scoop in sugar by the tablespoon.

I added one...

And then another...

And then another...

And then another...

And then another...

And then another for good measure.

By the time it was all said and done I had about 6 tablespoons of sugar in a 20 ounce glass of tea.

I gulped that sweet sugary bit of bliss like it was the last drop of moisture on Earth, and then I started to feel sick. Really sick. Vomit-y sick.

I spent the next few hours in the bathroom hugging the toilet.

I don't remember what my grandma was doing during all of this, but this was the same grandma who tried to force me to eat lettuce so maybe she was standing by and letting me learn my lesson. Who knows?

What I do know is this: I despise sweet tea. What I once, for one whole day, thought was the most delicious beverage to ever roll across my tongue is now hated as much as the dreadful lettuce. If there is so much as a speck of sugar or sweetener in my tea I will taste it, I will gag, and I will refuse to drink anything from that glass until it is washed. I also know that I have issues and I can admit it, but as I always say, it's just part of my charm. :-)