The Taint of Grape Soda

{Note:My tongue is firmly planted in my cheek for this post, y'all!}

Do you remember Peewee's?  When I was a little girl back in the 70's -- the Dark Ages according to my chicklets -- my daddy would once in a while bring home little bottles of Peewee soda for my sisters and me.  I was about three or four then.  I don't remember much from back then, but I think those drinks are partly responsible for my love of grape soda today.

The other reason I love the fizzy grape stuff?  My daddy.  He loved grape soda. My mom made sure we all ate healthy food most of the time, but on special occasions we had plenty of not-so-healthy snacks and soda.  And we always had the grape stuff on hand.

And with most things we parents love, we usually want to pass that love of something special down to our kids.  So imagine my disappointment when my kids turned their noses up at the offer of grape soda.  Ah! How can it be?  What could possibly have caused this dislike of something so pure, so right, so full of massive amounts of sugar and food coloring?

It was...children's pain reliever! {gasp} Oh no!  How did TechDaddy and I miss this?  We should have seen this coming.  Seen it and stopped it in its fever-and-pain-reducing tracks.  Who knew so many years ago that in its ability to make my achey, feverish toddlers feel better, this charlatan would warp my kids taste buds and brain cells to produce one of the most heinous of circumstances...the taint of grape soda!

Why, oh why, didn't they just leave well enough alone?  So what if the old pain reliever was bitter and caused your tongue to curl up in a wad in your mouth and cry.  So what if it made your kids run and hide in the bathtub. They didn't have to take down all things grape in order to get kids to "like" their medicine, did they??

And yes, all things grape have been tainted.  Why, the other day my 12-year-old son was looking for a snack {after eating enormous amounts of healthy fruit first, of course}.  He found a grape-flavored lollipop sitting all alone on the pantry shelf and said "Can I throw this away? Nobody's going to eat it."  After asking why he wouldn't want to enjoy it, he reacted with a grossed out face and replied "No way, yuck. It's grape. It tastes like medicine."  And my 14-year-old agreed. Oh, the horror.

He then turned into MacGyver, whacking the pop with a hammer just to see it splinter into a zillion pieces all over my kitchen.  And he didn't even flinch when he saw it's chewy-chocolate center.  This is how bad the taint of grape has become!  And it doesn't stop at grape.  Oh, no!  Orange soda has been tainted as well as bubble gum flavor!  So protect your legacy of all things yummy, and beware of the grape soda taint!