Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.
The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.
The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.
Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.
"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.
It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.
"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.
In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.
And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.
You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.
The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.
I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.
Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.
"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.
Discipline is a journey.
Highly recommend all the Europeans visiting the US for the World Cup to use the Roadside America app and web site to help discover the fun in this country!
@ScottGustin@BoardwalkTimes Scott - If you haven’t seen this before, this should be fun! It’s a training video that the Disneyland Custodial team made in the mid-80’s. https://t.co/YdMfGOKYho
@jason_blum@obsessionmovie Just left the theater! What a great experience. Time for you to make a returning champion appearance with @MattBelloni on The Town to discuss this one!
@JoeSquawk getting demolished by @PeteButtigieg this morning on CNBC while his cohost was laughing about was the funniest thing I’ve seen on tv for quite some time.
Guys, I’m here for the doom scrolling but the influx of Japanese translated tweets in my timeline is the positivity I didn’t know I needed! Definitely my best day on X in a long time!