Yogurt Surprise!

I was just sitting here getting ready to eat a nice blueberry yogurt for breakfast. As I was stirring up the yogurt I was reminded of something which happened to me as a kid. I think every single time I eat yogurt I am reminded of this story, so I thought I'd share.

I don't remember how old I was, probably 9-10. I always loved to go to the grocery store with Mom for some reason. It was fun to see all the different stuff they had. Every time we'd go down the dairy aisle for milk we'd pass the yogurt section. I'd see all the different flavors and would often ask if we could get some. As usual, Mom would say no. I'd ask why and she'd say she didn't really care for it. As a result, I never had yogurt.

My friend from across the street and I used to ride our bikes all over the place, and one day we decided to secretly ride to the store. Oh man, if we got caught doing this we'd be dead for sure! But the shopping plaza where the grocery store was also had an ice cream shop, and a drug store which sold sodas and candy. Decisions, decisions...long life, or ice cream and sodas? Ice cream and sodas won out, so off we went.

Along the way my friend and I were debating whether we wanted to spend our money on ice cream or candy and sodas from the drug store. Candy won out. So we each bought a big ol' bag of candy and gum (we were particularly flush with cash on this rare occasion). Getting caught with the candy would also result in the parental death penalty too, but this is another story.

Just as we were about to leave to ride back home a thought occurred to me. Seeing as how we'd both gone completely over to the dark side and become bicycling drifter hobos, I thought to myself...'Why not try some of that yogurt stuff Mom will never buy?' My friend heartily agreed as he was in the same predicament, his mom wouldn't buy it either. So, off to the grocery store it was; I picked blueberry and he picked strawberry-banana (and I must admit, that strawberry-banana sounded awful good too).

When we got outside we sat on a bench and proceeded to eat our yogurts (we stole a couple plastic spoons from the soda shop). I opened mine up and it didn't look like blueberry, and my friend opened his up and his didn't look like strawberry-banana. Oh well, let's try it! I took one bite and it was like...blech! This yogurt stuff really isn't very good after all, Mom was right! As a matter of fact, it tasted like spoiled milk! Yuck! Now what? Can't throw away perfectly good food (golden rule # 5 Mom's book of capital offenses)!

I don't remember now how exactly we discovered there was sweet stuff at the bottom of the yogurt that day, but we did manage to figure it out. Okay, so the trick with this yogurt stuff was to scoop off all the yucky white stuff and throw it in the trash, and then eat the yummy fruit stuff at the bottom. Now, from an economics perspective this created a kind of paradox. The yogurt seemed like a good deal if you got a whole tub of the stuff, but if you could only eat a few spoonfuls of the stuff at the bottom, well, it wasn't such a good deal anymore. Hmmmm...not sure how to feel about this yogurt stuff.

Now, you all can call me a hopeless dork for what I'm about to say, but I can't lie; I went through the rest of grade school, junior high and even high school thinking this was how yogurt worked (i.e. that you either endured the nasty stuff to get to the good stuff, OR you just cut to the chase and chucked the nasty stuff and went straight for the good stuff)! Yogurt was just not an economically viable substance in my sheltered mind. Consequently, yours truly, the dumb cowboy never really actively sought out yogurt after my experience with my friend outside the grocery store.

Many years later I was sitting out on the quad outside the student union in college. A much more cultured student, clearly wiser in the ways of the world than I, came out of the campus cafeteria with a yogurt. They sat down nearby and started to eat their yogurt. I watched intently...this was either gonna' be really interesting, or really funny, one or the other. I looked forward to seeing their facial expressions, the grimaces and the struggle to get to the good part. They opened the yogurt and then to my utter amazement they did something which had never even once occurred to me; they began stirring it up before they ate it! Well, Holy Balls...that's one heck of a good idea!!! Why didn't I think of that?????

So I promptly got up and marched right into that cafeteria and got me one of those yogurt things. I came back outside, all sophisticated like (might have even raised my pinky a little to show off my 'sofistakashun' a bit) and went about the process of eating it. I'll be danged if that yogurt stuff wasn't pretty darn good...when ya' actually mixed it up!

Now, every time I get 'Fruit at the Bottom' yogurt, as I'm stirring it up, I remember my...Yogurt surprise.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Great story - sometimes the simplest things in life are often the best.

But just to be at odds - i love the white stuff and hence buy vanilla only. I can't trust fruit i can't properly see.

a reply to: CthruU

Thanks!

Okay, but "vanilla" is different than 'plain yogurt'.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: CthruU

Thanks!

Okay, but "vanilla" is different than 'plain yogurt'.

I didn't know that. Can you educate me on how. As i eat quite a bit of vanilla.

Edit: don't bother i just come to my senses. Big duhhhh to me.

a reply to: CthruU

I actually thought it was pretty funny!

I mean, can you imagine if I'd have grabbed a vanilla yogurt instead of a fruit at the bottom one that very first time???? Oh man, then I'd have been REALLY confoosed!!! I'd have probably thrown 10,000 yorgurts away by now!

LOL!!

There's actually an equally funny epilogue to this story as well (the part I said was 'another story' in the OP).

Remember how I said if we got caught riding our bikes to the store we'd get killed???

Well, we DID get caught!! Fortunately not by my mom, or my friend's mom, but another mom who was best friends with my mom. I cringed when I saw her drive by! She hit the brakes, and I could see her looking in her rear view mirror as she went by. I saw her make some kind of hand gesture (like: stay put!) Oh man, were we gonna' get it. I knew she was coming back for us. But, but...we had all this candy. If we got caught with all that candy, on our bikes, on the side of the road, we'd be dead for sure!

Remember golden rule #5 from above; the one about never throwing food away??? Well, we couldn't just ditch all that candy on the side of the road, that was just NOT gonna' happen! I mean, we'd risked our lives to get that candy, and the thought of just tossing it away (screw golden rule #5!) was just unimaginable! If we were gonna die, then at least we were goin' down with a belly full of candy. So rather than try to ditch my mom's friend we stopped, and proceeded to perform an Emergency Candy Gobble (ECG). It was dire, and we didn't have much time. Mrs. Christianson was gonna' be back pretty quick.

I choked down about (3) $10,000 bars (now they're $100,000 bars due to inflation), about (2) Snickers bars and (2) Milky Way bars, a Payday and finished the whole thing off by stuffing an entire pack of Bubble Yum in my maw. My friend got most of the way through his stuff and was stuffing the last piece of grape Bubble Yum into his head when Mrs Christianson rolled up in the gravel from behind (she'd circled around the block). Whew...that was a close one!!! Now the only evidence left was a bag and some wrappers which I quickly stashed in my pants.

The ride home to Mom seemed like an eternity after we loaded our bikes into the back of the station wagon. I wondered if she'd really put me on a spit and roast me like she'd said. I'd long since stopped caring about my buddy John; he was on his own! And I had no idea what fate awaited him.

I think Mrs Christianson really relished this whole thing, she loved to see me get in trouble. I could see her smirking as she tormented me with what Mom was going to do with me. My anxiety level was over the Moon.

Well, much to my surprise, Mom wasn't all that mad and spared my life. I got a lecture about staying off busy roads and next time to tell her where we were going so she'd at least know what jurisdiction to call to warn the authorities. Whew...my life was spared!!! Or so I thought...

Not too long afterwards I wasn't feeling so good. In fact, I was starting to feel downright rotten! Mom seemed real concerned about my well being. She kept asking me how I felt, I'm sure she was worried. (not really, she knew we'd both stuffed a whole bag of candy into our gullets). I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening just wishing she'd roasted me on a spit like she'd said!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

When I was a kid the yoghurt in England had no fruit. It had colourings, flavourings, aromas and a bucket load of sugar. That's great when you're a kid but no fun as an adult as all the fillings in your teeth try to escape at the first spoonful and it tastes all wrong flavour-wise.

I was 30+ before I tasted plain yoghurt, here in Holland. The first spoonful was a shock, but it was a good shock. "So this is what yoghurt really tastes like...mmm." They also have the fruit at the bottom stuff too. I haven't eaten it in ages but now you mention it, I think it's time to get some yoghurt again.

Try Noosa yoghurt, the white stuff is good as well as the fruit.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

But them bananas are like eating rubber.