T.G.I.F

“Where's the tonic? Have you seen the tonic?” I called through the house.

“Gus!!! Have you seen the tonic?”

“Ya, it’s either there in the fridge,” he poked his rather shaggy head into the refrigerator, thus obliterating my view entirely. Four half-filled, half-empty catsup bottles, that’s all I could see. Somehow with my four days away from the house, my husband and two teenage boys managed to get four bottles on the go. No one had thought to check the fridge before opening another.... but more importantly, where’s my tonic?

I opened up the pantry, and checked the recycling. Only one empty can. I know there is another in here somewhere.

“Here it is, Mom, behind the mustard at the back of the fridge.” He handed it to me and smiled.

I cracked the can, listened to the hiss of the carbonation escape the aluminum. Evil drink, I think, sugar, bubbles in a single serve container. At least it isn’t aspartame or some other unknown; at least it is recyclable. How bad can a little aluminum tainted sugar water be? Who cares? I squeezed one quarter of a lime into my glass of ice, then another quarter lime. They were small limes. Then the tonic. It gurgled and fizzed all over the ice, and the lime wedges floated along the surface of the bubbles, bounced into the rim of the glass. I put the rest of the can into the fridge for later.

Gus, who had already run off doing a few chores in hopes for a few bucks, stuck his head back into the kitchen, “isn’t it a little early for a drink, Mom?” His grin split his face in two, with his perfect Chiclet smile as he teased his ol’ mom.

“It’s just tonic and lime.” I snapped.

“Thought it was a drink,” he said, he who woke me at two in the morning with the squeak of the bathroom door, he who smelled of beer and stale cigarettes, he who sleeps until noon. He.. who... I could go on, but why?
It should be, I thought. “It’s four -twenty, that’s plenty late enough.”

“Four-Twenty,” he laughed, and hauled the bin of dive gear from the front hall to the garage. Four twenty, the famous pot bill, marks one of his favourite time of the year, April 20th at 4:20pm—the annual smoke-in demonstration downtown. And he says to me: isn’t it too early for a drink! Funny boy.

So, my gin will wait for another hour to swill in the waters of my tonic. I’d only woken from a nap, no drinking while groggy. Tonic or just a plain and wonderful water is all I could handle until fully awake. I have no guilt, not really, about enjoying a drink on a sunny summer afternoon. I have kids, like him, who on occasion... would drive me to it, if I were so inclined to be driven. I am not driven, but do take the pleasure. And it is Friday, after all.

Cheers my mamma friends! T.G.I.F