Blasphemy alert!

I’m a child of the South and proud of it. I’ve had as many glasses of tea as the next guy. But thanks to a wordsmith friend, I’m about to rock your beverage world (unless you’ve already thought of this).

A few years ago, a group of us were having lunch and the waiter asked what he’d like to drink. He said “tea.”

Now everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line knows what the automatic response to that it is: “Sweet or unsweet?”

Game on.

This was not my friend’s first beverage rodeo and it was all he could do to contain himself. But he couldn’t let it go. “You know there is no such thing as unsweet tea, right?”

Insert dumbfounded look by waiter here.

“It’s either tea or sweet tea,” my boy said.

No response.

“Just give me unsweet,” he said.

In the months since, he has basically given up the fight. When we have lunch and the same transaction takes place, he just rolls his eyes. “It’s not worth it anymore,” he says.

He thought he was going to change the way the world — or at least the South — ordered tea, one Sweet ‘N Low pack at a time. Tea is tea; you can’t “unsweeten” it any more than you can take the leaven out of unleavened bread.

To him, the question should be “tea or sweet tea?” and everyone would live in harmony. Instead, he has to suffer through the same exchange every time eats out.

I feel for him because I’ve witnessed the pain he feels. But nobody said being a trail blazer was going to be easy. He knew that when he took this on.

The beverage ordering world can often be a lonely place.

DAILY HAPPEN ARCHIVE

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You’re putting a picture on here to show us a spoon? NEG. It just LOOKS like a spoon. And it sort of is. But it’s more than that: at least to one very important man in my life these past two weeks, it’s the Holy Grail of spoons.

About a month ago Mr. Bill dropped by one Saturday to talk about some red beans and rice he was fixing for us, a side dish for a wedding reception. He offered his big serving bucket, which sits in a water bath and keeps things hot; you don’t even have to stir. We said yes. His two big rectangular heavy-duty cafeteria pans, one for rice and one for beans. He threw in a ladle, a small pan to dip beans with from the heavy-duty pan to the Big Serving Bucket, two potholders…and this spoon.

We said yes. Thank you and yes.

“Now, you need to get this all back to me.”

“Yessir. For sure.”

“Now this spoon, I’ve had it for 50 years, and that’s for longer than I’ve had this ink pen,” he said.

“You’ve always been good at keeping up with stuff,” I said.

“Now, if you don’t get me this spoon back, I’ll have to kill you,” he said. I waited for him to smile. I am still waiting.

“You take a pretty hard-line stance on cutlery, don’t you,” I said.

“Let me correct myself,” he said. “You don’t HAVE to bring it back. But if you don’t, I’ll have to kill you.”

I told him I’d bring it back. For sure. Yes. Spoon. Back to you. Thank you.

On game day, we got it all out to the venue. After the last bean-eater and cake-cutter had left the property, my friends helped gather that and more up, then stuff it into various cars and SUVs. When we unpacked and cleaned the next morning, no potholders and worse, no spoon.

I said something along the lines of “MY GOD!?”

A couple of phone calls and it was suspected that the caterer, not knowing he was putting a man’s life on the line, unwittingly had PROBABLY taken the absent items. He’d look and see. Tomorrow or Tuesday. “LORDY!,” is the type word you say when your life hangs in the balance.

Tuesday at my house, in a plastic grocery sack, the Prodigal Spoon and Potholders were found returned. So while the reception unofficially ended on a Saturday night around 9, it didn’t officially end until around 10:20 the following Wednesday morning, when I returned it to Mr. Bill, and because of that, I have lived to tell the story.

(P.S.: His red beans and rice were to die for…)

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