Day Five Continued: Otter Pops!!

Little Orphan Orange

Alexander the Grape

Poncho Punch

Louie Blue Raspberry

Sir Isaac Lime

Strawberry Short Kook

Anyone else remember these frozen pops you squeezed up their little plastic tubes after you'd ripped them open with your teeth?? Major flashback moment in the camp store!!

We'd gone in looking for sports drinks; trying to get some electrolytes into my kiddo.

“No way! Otter pops!” I exclaim.

“What? What?” Isaac wants to know.

Man alive, and they are 25 cents! I look down to be sure I haven't turned into my 10-year-old self, glance at the cars outside to ensure it is not suddenly 1979 and I'm not in some hokey movie where the dog talks or the people trade bodies for the appropriately alliterated day of the week. Otter pops.

I glance perfunctorily at the list of ingredients. I'd be hard-pressed to find any food from my formative years that did not contain high fructose corn syrup, which is, naturally, listed second only to water on the Otter Pops label. HFCS is known around our house as “that 'gredient Mommy doesn't like,” and alternatively, the “not-good-for-you sugar.”

It's only day five on the road and already our nutritional and hygenic rules have bent so far as to be unrecognizable.

“What flavor do you want, Iz?” I call cheerily.

Like the serendipity that surrounds us all if we only choose to look, my boy picks “the green one,” i.e., Sir Isaac Lime.