These days, you can’t throw a stick without hitting a mom clutching a glass of vino to temper the hours of “social distance learning” with the reality of 2020.
I, for one, am happy to have a senior, whose studies I can entirely ignore. The days of monitoring or supervising are nearing an end. College acceptance takes precedence over anything left in this rotten semblance of a schoolyear. Any reminders for tests or homework go unheeded. So why bother? After a constant barrage of uninformative teacher emails and daily school texts, stating, “Yes, another coronavirus case has been detected on campus,” we shrug and move on. Every day is the same. It’s easily the worst time to be a high school senior since the threat of being shipped off to Vietnam, and I imagine the emotional and social repercussions will be heavy and long-lasting. God, do I need a drink!
In any event, I am not drinking wine nor spirits. Fate has deemed that all alcohol gives me a headache lately, and it could not be timed any worse. So coffee and tea it is, with my beloved Coke at interims. Yes, 2020 has been a nightmare on every level. But at least we have the luxury of Netflix and Amazon in quarantine. We can still be comfortable and feel relatively safe, even without the company of fermented grapes.
During WWII, however, moms had more at stake, fearing for their husbands overseas as well as wondering if bombs would drop on our very soil. Were they encouraged to sample pinot? Alas, no. The power of pulling it together lay in Alka-Seltzer.
Alka-Seltzer kept the “unjust words” at bay. And it had already been time-tested. Even Will Rogers had stamped his approval a decade prior.
The post-war would see the addition of Speedy. Serenity now! Pronto!
But it wasn’t just for ladies about to lose their minds. Anyone indulging in food or drink could make use of it. Instead of a daydrinking suburban mommy, your pre-diabetic uncle kept a roll of A-S in his pockets. Just in case.
As Americans continued to eat up, sales continued to soar. While my association with the product is limited to the “Plop plop, fizz fizz” of the 70s, children of the 60s would have seen a more animated endorsement.
These days, when every other commercial pimps a prescription drug, meant to feed your fears as well as line the pockets of Big Pharma (O-O-O-OZEMPIC!), you have thousands of other choices to provide comfort for what ails you. Most of you probably take a daily prescription to address the imperfections of your mortal coils. But do any of you still take Alka-Seltzer?
I Don't Get It 
I was more of a Bromo guy myself. Don’t you remember Speedy Alka Seltzer? I don’t need to but I day drink. It breaks up the day. Stay healthy and enjoy that Coke.
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I never saw Speedy as a kid. I will enjoy my rationed Cokes and be missing whiskey.
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Such a shame. Coke is great but if you add whiskey you make it a party, even with one.
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I’m more into popping the Walgreens version of Tums these days, Kerbey, to help keep the results of high anxiety down where they belong.
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Those are something we use as well.
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Interesting that if you Goog the word “poise” your first hit is an ad for a panty liner of that name so I guess “losing one’s poise” is indeed an issue of some concern. But on to Alka-Seltzer. Did you know that it is an effective way to clean toilet bowls? Or that metal jewelry will come out sparkling from an Alka-Seltzer bath? Yes! These and many practical uses of the product are online! Bob Vila has a whole post about it including drain cleaning with Alka-Seltzer. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz to you, too! :lifts glass of Old #7 and Coke:
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SMH at your delicious Old #7. Poise pads are always my first thought as well, though I have yet to try them. We do have one difficult bowl that doesn’t respond to hours of bleach and scrubbing. I’ll have to try Alka-Seltzer! I mean, it has seltzer, so it must have magical bubbles.
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Yeah, Alka-Seltzer is not going to cut it at all in 2020. Not one bit. I actually spent most of this year stone cold sober. I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol until we hit September and virtual schooling for my kids and in-person teaching during a pandemic landed on my plate. I decided then that 2020 was not the year for going without alcohol and that I would reward myself with one bottle of wine every Friday (not consumed all at once but over a few days – alcohol makes me too sleepy these days for me to be capable of binging).
It really is a Groundhog Day onslaught of daily emails from the school, isn’t it? I wish they wouldn’t even bother sending me the emails about students testing positive and classes having to quarantine given my kids are all 100% virtual. It would help me sort out the wheat from the chaff amid the masses of communication each day. Best of luck to your son with his college application process. It’s quite the stressful slog. My oldest did the whole early acceptance thing so we are past that part and now onto the cold sweat panics about a) whether he will even be able to safely attend college in September and b) the hideous dread of the whole financial part of it.
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Yay, he got in! Mine got accepted into one, but we are awaiting the other three. And of course, as you say, it all weighs upon the aid that we get, since each year costs more than our annual household income, not even counting housing and food. Ugh! Separating the wheat from the chaff is the perfect way to put it. Mine is virtual so who cares? And all these kids are fit as fiddles; it’s just who they pass it on to. I wish it would end. It definitely demands wine.
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There’s light at the end of the tunnel at least with the vaccine roll out but, according to some medical professionals I know, we probably have almost another year to go of mask wearing and social distancing. My liver better be robust!
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Ha!
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And Congratulations to your son!
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Thanks!
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Do they still make alka seltzer? I used to love pepto bismol when I was a kid. Now it’s tums or rolaids as needed.
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Yep, same with me.
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