Forty years later, I’m not so proud of this but it still feels good.

My 3-generation family went to our favorite old-fashioned amusement park a couple of hours from home. We never had extra money, so we packed sandwiches & planned to buy beverages for our lunches. My mom had been driving. She suffered from severe migraines —was even studied at Johns Hopkins about hers—and she had a particularly vicious one that day. As soon as we arrived, we found an outlying picnic table in the shade, and I took orders for each person’s beverage choice. Mom said all she could handle was water. Most of us wanted coffee or iced tea.

I placed our order at a very old-fashioned style snack trailer where one side had been converted to resemble a cafeteria counter. 4(?) cups coffee with various additives, 3(?) iced teas with various additives. I was wondering how I would keep everything upright in the 2 cardboard boxes, when the cashier told me they didn’t not sell water. What beverage should she substitute?

I tried negotiating. Explained why it needed to be just water. Offered to pay full price for an empty Dixie cup, etc. No. No. No. <sadistic sneer> “Okay then. Coffee. With what? I don’t know… Oh, cream and sugar.” Paid for the additional drink. As soon as it was released into my hand, I neatly poured out the contents as far as I could reach along the counter, then gave the cup a quick shake.

I gathered everything up and headed to a water fountain. “Thanks for the water!”