The Yogurt Saga

So my girlfriend, Cheryl, and I rode our bikes up to the shopping plaza. We weren't really supposed to go that far, but who would know. About 2/3rds of the way there we ran into Chad, the local bully. He'd start a fight with anyone who came down the street, like he "owned" the street for something. Must have been some punk kids on that street I guess. This time, rather than speed past (my 10 speed went way faster than Chad's stupid K-mart bike) I stopped and jumped off my bike and ran right at Chad. Cheryl got off her bike too...she was one tough girl! Dad was right, he wasn't all that brave. Chad ran away like a little girl. But I digress.

Anyway, once at the store we went into Sherman's the general store. Sherman's had all kinds of cool stuff, but we didn't have much money, mostly just our allowance and some lawn cutting money. Candy seemed like a pretty good option so we perused the candy aisle and decided to pool our funds on a bunch of Zotz, some candy cigarretes, several packs of Bubble-Yum gum and some baseball cards. We still had some funds left over so we decided to hit the little grocery store next door and see what stuff they had.

Never really got to go in the grocery store without Mom, so this was kind of a secret adventure. Wow, there was really a lot of cool stuff I'd never seen before. Shopping there with Mom was a laser beam specific experience. Chocolate milk sounded good after the long bike ride. Back by the milk aisle we happened upon this stuff called "yogurt". They had all different kinds of flavors, and we even had money enough to get a couple. We passed on the chocolate milk and grabbed a blueberry and a strawberry yogurt. The nice cashier lady even had a couple plastic spoons which she gave us...for FREE even! Man, this was turning out to be a great expedition!

Cheryl and I went outside the store and sat on the curb to try our new discovery, yogurt. I took the lid off my blueberry and got ready to dig in. I was really hankering for some delicious blueberry something or other by then. I think we both stuck our spoons in the cup at the same time, I guess Cheryl liked blueberry a lot too. I shoveled a big ol' spoonful of blueberry into my mouth and...YUCK!! BLEHCKK...GAK! What the heck is this stuff??? It was awful! Tasted like milk that had been in the fridge too long! I looked over at Cheryl and the expression on her face was priceless She looked like she'd just sucked on a un-ripe lemon.

Now, we'd both heard of people rave about how good yogurt was. In fact, Mom had even gotten a yogurt maker for Christmas the year before, but she'd never made any. Dad seemed to think yogurt was the best thing since sliced bread, he always talked about it anyway. Man, grown ups sure do like some weird stuff I guess, and this yogurt stuff certainly confirmed it. Cheryl and I had spent our last .25 cents on these two yogurts, and by golly we were gonna' eat 'em! Besides, a kid's gotta' grow up sometime anyhow. So we pressed on, taking spoonful after sour danged spoonful. This stuff was horrible, and it didn't taste like blueberry at all. It was just too much, so we decided to try Cheryl's strawberry yogurt. UGH...same danged thing.

Cheryl and I were sitting there (on the curb) fretting about how anyone could ever be allowed to call these yogurt things 'strawberry' and 'blueberry' when all they tasted like was sour milk. I never wasted anything, but I was just about ready to throw my blueberry in the trash. One last spoonful, I thought to myself. I dug in deep, figuring the bigger the spoonful the sooner the awful yogurt experiment would be over! (I was sure glad Mom never made any of this stuff after all). I hoisted the spoonful up to my mouth, eyes pinched shut. I think I might have even pinched my nose too. I'd made up my mind, one last giant spoonful and I was tossing the rest in the trash. Boy did I get a surprise!

My last torturous bite turned out to be overwhelming blueberry spectacular-ness. WOW!! It was blueberry times 50x. Just crazy blueberry. I think Cheryl had a strawberry epiphany about the same time I had my blueberry. Man, this was GREAT...now we're talkin'!! By the time I got to the bottom I was wishin' I had a tongue like Fella, my dog. He'd have been able to lap every single bit out of that cup! If I could have figured out how to stick my face inside that yogurt cup I surely would have.
"Why didn't they make the whole yogurt taste like that?" I asked Cheryl.
"Dunno, but next time we get some we can just scoop out all that yucky stuff at the top and just eat the part at the bottom!" she said.

I think about 5 years went buy before I had yogurt again. Chocolate milk seemed to be a better bang for the buck. Then one day I saw this kid Josh pull some yogurt out of his lunch sack. Josh was a weird kid anyway, so it didn't surprise me he loved yogurt. I always sat at a different lunch table than Josh, he was just too weird for me, but I watched him as he yammered on to someone about how good yogurt was. Josh pulled the lid off that yogurt and stuck his spoon in all the way to the bottom. Then he stirred it all up. By golly, ol' Josh might be onto something!

I steeled myself to go over and actually talk to Josh despite the fact some weirdness might rub off on me.
"Hey Josh, where'd you learn to do that with that yogurt stuff??" I asked.
Josh looked at me with this puzzled look. "Uhhhhh, that's what you're supposed to do with yogurt! It'd be nasty otherwise, like sour milk." he said.
"Oh...yeah, I knew that! I was just checkin' to see if you knew." I said back...fibbing through my teeth the whole time.

I think it was my first true 'light-bulb' moment as a kid. I guess it made total sense when you actually took the time to "read" the cup. What "Fruit at the bottom" really meant was "You're supposed to stir it first, DUMMY!"

And so a Life Lesson was learned that day.

I love yogurt.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think the nastiest thing I ever tried to eat was liver and onions my father made when I was a kid. It still gives me the willies.

Other than liver and other organs, I'm pretty much a complete omnivore. I hope I don't have to explicitly say cannibalism is not included with being an omnivore.

The worst dairy experience I ever had, I was about 6 years old and took a huge swig out of the buttermilk container in my great grandma's fridge.

I still get angry whenever I see a cow.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I love cheese,. damn cheese!


I drank spoiled milk once, that was bad, wasn't sure I was going to live lol

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

... I hope I don't have to explicitly say cannibalism is not included with being an omnivore.

Why not?

I like mine done medium with a nice truffle & mushroom sauce.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

... I hope I don't have to explicitly say cannibalism is not included with being an omnivore.

Why not?

I like mine done medium with a nice truffle & mushroom sauce.

With a nice chianti and some fava beans.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think the nastiest thing I ever tried to eat was liver and onions my father made when I was a kid. It still gives me the willies.

Liver and onions with some mustard on the side? FANtastic! Doesn't look too good until you cook it, but after that it's a very lean steak. Don't over cook it to keep it tender.

Best story EVER. thanks for a great read. Glad I clicked your thread.

It's called fruit on the bottom for a reason, it needs to be mixed.

originally posted by: rickymouse
It's called fruit on the bottom for a reason, it needs to be mixed.

I think OP's entire story was about figuring that out, but thanks for the clarification in case anyone missed the point of his story.

a reply to: schuyler

Heh, heh...yep!

I think my worst dairy experience also involved my little friend Cheryl.

The neighbors were away on vacation and we were out playing in their field. It was pretty hot out and we were both really thirsty. The neighbors house was much closer than my house, so we decided to go there and grab a drink out of the hose. On the way by the porch Cheryl saw a delivery tag sticking out of the milk box. After some consulting on the matter we both agreed, anything in the milk box would just go bad before the neighbors returned...besides, they may even have some chocolate milk. It would have been a national tragedy to let chocolate milk spoil!!

When we opened the box we were disappointed to find there was no chocolate milk, but there was some regular milk. Regular milk was a heck of a lot better than water from a stinky hose. Now keep in mind, this was back when milk was still delivered in returnable glass bottles. Anyway, parched as I was I grabbed the milk, pulled out the stopper and slugged down about half the bottle.

Just as fast as that milk went down did it come right back up again....(BLLLLAAAARRRFFF!!!) "What the...(GAK, SNORT, GAG, GAK...GAK)...Gawd, I'm gonna... (BLARFFF!). By now I was on my hands and knees in the yard, blowing last week's mac & cheese. I was dyin'!! I couldn't speak, breathe or move (I think I might have even crapped myself a little too). I managed to gasp "what..the...hell..Was that stuff???"
"The lid says buttermilk" Cheryl said.

Now, I'd never had buttermilk before, and I'd just slugged down a half quart of warm buttermilk on the verge of spoilage.

Nearly fifty years later I still wretch remembering that day!

Never really did like buttermilk after that.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think the nastiest thing I ever tried to eat was liver and onions my father made when I was a kid. It still gives me the willies.

Liver and onions with some mustard on the side? FANtastic! Doesn't look too good until you cook it, but after that it's a very lean steak. Don't over cook it to keep it tender.

Now I understand why your avatar has zombie eyes.

Did you mean to put all those metaphoric cliches in there?

Great read FCD.