One
memory that is gross to me in retrospect that felt not only right, but
good at the time was sharing drinks through one straw. When we went on
a long trip or shopping and we'd been good, my mom would reward us by
getting a 32 ounce fountain drink like a root beer or Sprite. We
would only get one cup for all three or four of us and we would all be
sitting in the backseat. We would have the one massive cup and one
straw and start on one side of the car take a sip, pass it to the
next kid, and sip. And so on, back and forth, until it was just ice
slurping dregs. It is absolutely disgusting to think about the
hygienic state of my own kid's mouths and more importantly, noses,
and thinking what state that straw and remaining fluid must have been
in makes me shudder. I think anyone who has ever shared a cup with a
kid will know right away the floaties I am talking about. Beyond the
horror of retrospect I did have the advantage of being better at math
than my brothers and sisters so whenever we got back into the car I
would counter-intuitively give up the coveted window seats for a
middle one. This was because I knew that if you're passing back and
forth instead of just back and then resetting or just fourth and then
resetting, the person the middle got almost double the drinks. The
view out the window is not as good as twice the liquid sugar and all that tasty,
tasty slobber and oral detritus. Yum.
