On The Rocks or Straight Up ... You Always Want More

Looking across the table at my kids as we dine on sushi, I smile at my son fixating on the engineering behind chop sticks purposely rigged with a rubber band to make them five-year-old friendly. The aroma of black tea as the cup nears my lips reminds me of pot. My daughter orders the usual white rice and won ton.

Then I hear a request from a booth two doors down. It reminds me of how different this family dinner out is from the ones I remember as a kid.

"Orange soda."

I want to immediately scream NO ICE. I'll get to why in a minute.

You see, growing up in the recession-burdened seventies in a blue collar neighborhood with a thrifty Depression-era father meant dinners out had to be a very special occasion, or involve a too-good-to-pass-up coupon. The special occasion was always the "kids'" birthday dinner. Luck shined down on dad in this department since his three children all had birthdays during the month of September (well, mine was end of August, close enough) so one outing sufficed. As for the coupon, it was always McDonalds, and always for Filet-O-Fish. A two for one deal. Being that there were five of us, dad got to eat two. But to compensate for the, in his mind, coercion of having to pay full price for accompaniments, like fries and drinks, he ordered only TWO large orange sodas, NO ICE. Always said with great emphasis. And three extra small cups.

Why orange soda? We never questioned it. My mom offered no input. I think she was just happy to be out of the house and not heating up chicken pot pies and Ellio's pizza for a change. Maybe he thought it was a treat for us kids, offering a taste along of the lines of an orange ice pop ... oh wait, there's that word. Never mind.

Whatever the reason, to this day I am compelled to respond NO ICE to any mention of orange soda. And that is exactly what I did in my mind that evening in the Japanese restaurant. I chuckled to myself as I did so and thought of those days gone by, and all the other instances where my father's rationing and frugality make for today's good-natured dad-bashing conversations between my siblings and me.  We eventually came to realize that being raised by a spendthrift had no ill effect on us, taught us conservation rather than wastefulness, and motivated us to work harder to earn more if more is indeed what you want. And who doesn't always want more?