Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sweet Tea is Heading North

The sweet tea line is encroaching on the north. Whether the armadillos are following the sweet tea or the sweetened tea comes with the armadillos is anybody’s guess.

Not too many years ago, we hardly ever saw an armadillo in Kansas, or even in Oklahoma for that matter; and if you wanted your iced tea sweet you put in a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Now days flat armadillos are a regular feature of highway driving in Kansas and Missouri and waitresses have taken to asking if you want sweetened or unsweetened tea.

The amazing thing about this question is, how do you unsweeten tea? Tea is not sweet to begin with; therefore, you have to not add sugar to make it unsweetened. Taking the sugar out is a major trick.

At any rate, the line between sweet tea drinkers and us regular unadulterated tea types used to be the Mason-Dixon line. Then it became I-44. According to my friend, world traveler, and observer of such things, Dave Smart, the sweet-tea-line is now I-70. The alarming thing about this observation is that I live south of I-70, as do many of my friends. That means that the sweet tea infestation is near. It is time to defend ourselves. Can ‘possom stew and grits be far behind? And we haven’t even talked about Krispy Kreme.

I am sure that this is all caused by global warming and it is Al Gore’s fault.

Friends, let’s start rounding up the armadillos (those that haven’t already tried to cross the road) and send them back to Texas. And then next time somebody says, “Honey, would ya’ll like some tea.” Just remember that it is going to be loaded with sugar, and that you heard it here first.