Farewell to Sweet Tea?

Somehow, some way . . . I have to find a way to give up sweet tea. You know why. We all do. I’m not going to recite the exhausting litany of sugar’s sins here. Plenty of other bloggers have piled on that subject. What a bore. Sugar is reviled like demons in the Bible, drivers who fail to stop for children in school crosswalks, and pension fund embezzlers. The truth is:  I’m not sure I can give it up. I’ve been off soft drinks for a year, and I don’t drink coffee. There is nothing left but water. Water tastes like nothing. Like licking Formica. A necessity for cleaning the toilet. Watering the lawn. Brushing one’s teeth. A glass of iced tea is how I start my day. It’s the libation of courage. I can face anything after imbibing—throw-up bugs, tax returns, 100-degree days, and flea infestations—if I am supported by those small bags of fragrant leaves, water, and a little sugar. Plus a little more sugar. And a smidge more. Sweet tea, full-gas, with caffeine to help me teach back-to-back writing classes and enough sugar to hold its own with any doughnut—this libation is the drink of my people. My touchstone. My cultural icon. Think of each cube of ice as a worry bead on a rosary. Sweetened iced tea is the consumable extended metaphor for good manners, intimate conversations, regional hospitality, and a sweet, fragrant beacon of hope that reassures me that I still live in a world that values civility in our interactions with one another. Marriages have been saved, children put back on the straight-and-narrow, indeed, wars have likely been averted over glasses of sweet tea with lemon and mint. It’s inexpensive. Easy to make. Timeless. Classless. Non-gender-specific. Humble. All God’s children love sweet tea.  I wrote an entire chapter about sweet tea in one of my books. I don’t just want sweet tea. I need it. I believe this to the depths of my being in a way that my mind can never be changed, the same way I know that wedding cake is the best cake in the world, that there is a merciful God, and a mullet is an unflattering haircut for anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances. Perhaps this is where I must make my stand. I’ll be the sweet tea maven. The woman who would not bow to science, reason, good sense, or cajolery. I’ve been called worse.

The Sweet Tea Sacrifice

 

This week a number appeared on my bathroom scale that I have never seen before in reference to my own body, a number more commonly associated with small ponies, kitchen appliances, and Crimson Tide linemen. My first reaction was to turn around and smack the unknown person who must be standing right behind me on the scale with rocks in his pockets to weigh us down. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a soul in that bathroom but me. That joker with rocks was quick.

It was time for me to face the horrid, unflattering truth: The season for hopeful thinking, stretchy fabric, and new, distracting lipstick has passed. Drastic action is called for before double-digit clothing sizes are my new norm, so . . .  I decided to give up sweet tea. Yeah. You read that correctly. I’d rather give up a kidney. That would be easier.

As a Southern woman, this is personal sacrifice on an epic scale—like removing rice from the diet of anyone on the Pacific Rim. I assume this offering to the gods will rectify the previously mentioned scale issue. I certainly don’t plan to toy with my life-sustaining supply of cheese straws, petits fours, or drinks with tiny umbrellas in them. I hope this is an end to the matter. If not, you’re going to hear about it, and so are readers all around the country. In my experience, Southern women rarely suffer alone.