It’s first thing in the morning and I’m stumbling, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen.
Lizzie is already there, standing at the kitchen table. In front of her is some kind of large, extraordinary contraption. Motors are whirring away inside it, causing coloured liquids to shoot along pipes sticking out of the thing at various angles.
‘Morning Caractacus,’ I yawn at Lizzie.
‘Eh?’ she replies, the reference going over her head completely.
A large spout protrudes from the front of the contraption, from which coloured liquid is spewing into a glass positioned beneath.
‘So this must be your new juicer,’ I say to Lizzie, looking at the machine, amazed. Clearly, keeping the design simple and the construction materials to a minimum was not on the manufacturer’s to-do list.
As part of her new anti-cancer healthy diet, Lizzie has been advised to drink as many smoothies as possible. Not just fun fruit smoothies (which are usually red in our household, due to their heavy berry quotient)… no, she’s been told to drink the hardcore, un-fun kind: fruit and vegetable smoothies (which are usually an ominous green).
Hence the new juicer… which can presumably, like some kind of heavy industry hardware, juice just about anything.
Eventually, Lizzie picks up the glass from under the juicer and takes a sip of the green liquid within. It looks an awful lot like Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
‘Ew!’ grimaces Lizzie. ‘Gah! Too much ginger!’
I can practically smell the ginger from where I’m standing.
Lizzie presses a button and another glass of the green stuff is retched out.
‘Try it!’ she says to me, holding the glass up.
‘No fucking way!’ I reply.
‘Ginger’s meant to be good for hay fever. And this drink is full of it.’
‘You’re full of it,’ I snap back.
Lizzie holds the drink nearer to me. ‘Try it!’ she insists, like a drug dealer who won’t take no for an answer.
I’m a chronic hay fever sufferer. I used to only ever get it from June to July. But, since we moved to the countryside, it seems to be starting earlier in the year. You might be thinking, maybe a chronic hay fever sufferer shouldn’t have moved to the countryside in the first place, dummy! And you’d probably be right.
Well, if it’s going to help with my hay fever… Reluctantly, I take the glass.
‘Don’t sip it! You have to down it in one, like a shot!’ says Lizzie, with barely suppressed glee. She’s clearly delighted not to be going through this experience alone.
I shut my eyes, open my mouth and glug the stuff back.
It tastes… unbelievably awful. Like liquid hell. The ginger is so strong, it’s like drinking ginger beer at x1000 strength (without any of the nice accompanying ginger beer taste).
The back of my throat is on fire.
‘IT BURNS!!!!!!’ I shriek melodramatically whilst pulling a grotesque face – sounding and looking like Dr. Jekyll after imbibing his deadly elixir.
‘MY EYES!! MY EYES!!!’ whoops Lizzie, getting into the gothic spirit of the thing. By this point, she’s crying with laughter – delighted to be sharing the suffering.
Ten minutes later, I say to Lizzie: ‘I can still taste that ginger in the back of my throat.’
‘But…’ says Lizzie, with a hopeful expression, ‘… how’s your hay fever?’
I think very carefully.
‘No better,’ I reply, confidently. ‘If anything, I’d say it’s worse. I don’t think I’ll be needing any more of your concoctions.’
‘How convenient,’ replies Lizzie, dryly.
P. D. Clifton 
Leave a comment