Conquering The Wench

I don’t like fizzy water. I never have. I thought I never would. It’s like drinking tasteless soda, which to me is pointless. Very pointless. The only reason I would subject my teeth and my body to soda’s assault is to enjoy that short-lived pleasure of sweetness on my taste buds. I don’t even like carbonated drinks to start with, so why on earth would I drink fizzy water!

Every time I saw someone take fizzy water, I would shudder, imagining that tasteless taste on my tongue and I would gag. Like seriously, It’s like paddling a boat on sand and wondering why you’re not getting anywhere. It’s like running on a treadmill to catch the bus. Basically, pointless!

Then one day, I was having a meal and started to choke and all there was within my reach was a bottle of fizzy water so I gulped it down. Then some other time, I drank it, just for the sake of it, just to prove to every crazy person out there who thought the idea of fizzy water was a great one, that they were crazy. And before I knew it, it didn’t seem so bad. From not so bad, it started to have a character of its own, the way the gas effervesces in your mouth, filling it up temporarily before the bubbles all pop, that tasteless taste that was full of abstract flavors, each one unique and telling your taste buds a different exotic secret of its own, the way it goes down your throat, still bubbling and popping…sigh. Now I’ve become the one who asks for fizzy water at restaurants or eateries and sighs long-sufferingly when she’s given the blank, uncomprehending stares.

And you know the very worst part of it all? Now that I have finally admitted how much in love I am with the infuriating thing, it is nowhere to be found! I think I have checked every single Supermarket in Lagos and the very best I have got is “Sorry, we just ran out.” It’s as if the silly thing is trying to make me pay for all the years of snobbery and turning up my nose at it and doing my mouth like they put ewúro in it. Sometimes, I wonder if it didn’t just come after me relentlessly, stopping at absolutely nothing to woo me just for the satisfaction of dumping me and stomping on my heart when it finally had it.

And you know how these things work, the more it eludes me, the more I want it. Even knowing as I do right now that this whole romance of ours was just a farce and it was all just a ploy at payback, doesn’t stop me from wanting it and craving it. I can just imagine it standing with its fellow carbonated drinks on a hidden shelf somewhere in Shoprite (probably in Portharcourt or Kano or Pluto), bragging with pride “I broke the Ice Queen, I climbed the tree no one else can, brought the Wench to her knees!” >:(

I hate and love the annoying thing in almost equal measure! Someone please, please get me a bottle of fizzy water… :’(

This Post has previously been published on Breakpoint.