Arguing With The Wife About Fruit-Flavored Tea: A Nevin Barich Blog Experience

Sometimes, a random conversation with my wife Ramona leads to a good blog. :-) Observe our conversation from today about fruit-flavored tea:

Ramona: Hey, you want me to buy you any of that fruit-flavored tea?

Nev: Nah, I don't like it.

R: Really? They have all different types of flavors.

N: Yeah, but it all tastes the same to me.

R: Nev, surely we can find you a flavor you like. There's blueberry. There's pomegranate...

N: OK, one day someone is going to have to explain to me what the hell a pomegranate is. I mean, I woke up one morning and all of a sudden pomegranate was in every single beverage in America.

R: Pomegranate is a fruit, Nev. It's been around forever.

N: Babe, I just don't understand this whole fruit-flavored tea thing.

R: This fruit-flavored tea thing?

N: Yeah. I mean, when did tea become fruit-flavored?

R: Um, like 300 years ago?

N: No it hasn't. Tea was never fruit-flavored. It was just tea. Simple, direct tea. Then one day someone put it in a fancy lookin' can, added some pome-whats-it, tripled the price, and now you think you're drinking something healthy.

R: Nevin, tea has been fruit-flavored for centuries. India, for example, has been flavoring their tea with fruit for years.

N: India? What the hell do they know about tea?

R: Nev, they were part of the huge spice trade.

N: Wasn't that about salt?

R: And when I went to Turkey a few years ago, I had apple-flavored tea. And it was great! It tasted like hot apple cider.

N: Well there you have it. You were drinking apple cider.

R: No, Nevin. I was drinking tea.

N: No, Ramona. You think you were drinking tea. But in actuality, the folks in Turkey don't know what tea is, so they call cider tea, and they made you think you were drinking tea when in fact you were drinking cider.

R: Nevin: Fruit-flavored tea is great.

N: You only think it's great. But in reality, you have been so bamboozled by fancy labeling and marketing and PC fanatics, that you no longer have any idea which way is up and what fruit is real!!

R: Nev, stop talking about things that you have no clue about.

(pause)

N: But what fun would that be?

:-)

And now for this week's:

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

A devout Michigan State football fan called timeout before doctors could install a pacemaker in his chest Thursday, deferring the procedure until after the school's football game this weekend against rival Michigan.

Major Hester said he was willing to risk death so that he could watch Saturday's game in Ann Arbor on television. The Spartans are ranked 17th in the country and the Wolverines are ranked 18th.

The 69-year-old retired office supply clerk said he put off the procedure until next week because he can't risk something going wrong on the operating table that would prevent him from watching the game.

God forbid.

In case you were wondering: Hester's risk of life was not in vain. His beloved Spartans won 34-17.