Mad Dog

Today's story turns the danger level way down. There are no bikes, guns, or monsters involved. But it does involve Harry and me being left home alone again.

This was probably about the same time as our Young Houdinis stunt when we were twelve or thirteen. I was spending the week with Harry in St. Louis and both of his parents were at work. We wandered into the kitchen looking for something to do. We were thirsty. The pantry and refrigerator were both full of liquids and condiments. So we got out a cup and started collecting ingredients.

This may not be such a rare thing to do, but I can still remember the awful smell and chunky texture of the drink we made. I obviously can't remember everything we mixed, but I know we started with liquids like juice, chocolate milk, soda, lemonade, and whatever else they had in the house at the time. Then we started adding seasonings such as salt, pepper, chili powder, and whatever they had in their spice rack. And then we added additional flavors such as mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and whatever else we could find.

I'm not sure who named it Mad Dog or why, but the name has stuck with us all these years. To describe the look of the drink would turn a billy goat's stomach. But we did each take a drink of our concoction.

This is not an actual picture of our drink, but it sure looks like it (ours had more things floating in it though). Would you take a drink of something that looked like that?

And this wasn't the only time we did it. We tortured ourselves a couple more times in the next several years with other versions of our Mad Dog drink.