Behold! Tonic Water!

Last Friday night George Clooney and I ventured out in the snow (storm?) to do a little grocery shopping. Exciting, right? I picked up some of those cute little bottles of tonic water, the ones that are like 8 oz or something. I was walking down the chip/soda aisle, looking for some little cans of Coke (everything I bought that night had to be cute and little) when a woman stopped me. This is only the 2nd time I've ever been stopped in the grocery, by a man or a woman.

She pointed at the tonic water and asked me what it was.

"Tonic water," I replied, pleasantly.

"Can I see it?," she asked.

[Okaaaaaaay] "Sure!," I said, and held up the little 6 pack.

"What is tonic water?," she asked, as if I had said "Time travel potion" instead of "tonic water."

Stumped, I had to admit that I did not know what tonic water was, technically. "Well, I'm not sure exactly but it's used as a mixer for drinks."

"Drinks?," she asked.

[Ummmmmmmmmm] "Yeah, like vodka tonics? Gin and tonics? You mix the tonic water with liquor to make a mixed drink."

"So you can drink this, huh?" she asked.

Now, I really thought I had stumbled into some one's brilliant con game. I kept checking my cart next to me, sure that while this woman was distracting me with her other-worldly fascination and incomprehension of tonic water, that someone was coming behind me to steal my purse. It would be a brilliant con.

"And this is diet tonic water. What makes it diet?," she asked, turning the bottles over in her hand.

"You know, I'm not really sure. I don't even like tonic, I'm buying this for someone else who drinks gin and tonics," I replied.

"Well thanks. Tonic water. I'm going to have to remember that," she said as she gave me back the bottles and scooted on her merry way.