The Birthday Soda

In the Obnoxious family, we never buy sodas at restaurants. First of all, we're just not the type of people who get into soda. Soda was a rarity at my home, growing up, because who needs it? Second of all, if my parents are already spending money on a dinner out for eight people, there's no way they're going to spend an extra $15 to $25 on carbonated liquid. That would be ridiculous.

The only time of year when my parents will take me to a restaurant and let me order a soda is the time of year when I celebrate my birth. They don't just buy me a soda, either. They'll take me to whatever restaurant I choose and say those four blessed words: "Get whatever you want."

If I want appetizers, I get appetizers. If I want salad and soup, I get salad and soup. If I want dessert, I get dessert. And if I want a soda then, by golly, I get a soda.

Normally, I don't like soda that much. It tends to make me feel gross inside if I drink too much. But when it's my birthday, because being allowed to order a soda is special, I always get a Sprite when my parents take me for dinner. And on that one day a year, it tastes to me like the nectar of Olympus.

This year for my birthday, my parents took me to Olive Garden. I ordered us an appetizer plate of both calamari and seafood stuffed mushrooms. I ordered myself salad and the chicken and gnocchi soup. I ordered seafood lasagna. I ordered black tie chocolate mousse cake.

And I ordered one tall, delicious, ice-cold glass of Sprite.

With free refills.

While we ate, my parents regaled me with tales of how adorable I was as a baby. How I tried to change my own diaper as a toddler. How I was born with dark, dark hair and how, in addition to my legal name, they gave me a Hawaiian name that means "dark-haired beauty". (Imagine their surprise and dismay when I turned out a towhead.)

It was pretty much perfect. Everything was highly wonderful until the waitress came and refilled my father's water glass.

Why did I not notice what she did next?

Why was I not paying attention?

Who knows? But I didn't, and I wasn't. And the next time I took a sip of my Sprite, I discovered that the waitress had forgotten that my glass contained not water but delicious and bubbling Sprite.

She had refilled my glass with her pitcher.

The pitcher did not contain Sprite.

When next I spoke, it was in a tiny, strained voice. "She poured water into my birthday soda," I said.

"We're sorry," said my parents, with feeling. There is something profoundly sad about your parents buying you just one soda a year and having one of said sodas be diluted with water. Obviously that's not a big problem in comparison to other problems in the world. It's not even a big problem in comparison to other problems in my life. Yet the little disappointments can be the most soul-crushing.

Happily, I left Olive Garden that night with enough Americanized Italian food to eat for three straight days. And in the end, that's all that matters.