This is a bit of a long story, so please bear with me, but the other night I went to a tiger party. Now, besides the proper music (Eye of the Tiger), the proper attire (tiger faces) and the proper game (pin the smile on the Kryger), we also were meant to have the proper food (tiger curry ... and anything orange).
So, I stopped in Coles and bought anything orange I could find -- cantalope, persimmons, bbq chips, ginger bears (don't bother asking) and orange Tic Tacs. I was really quite proud of myself. (I'd also bought a bag of gummy goodies that unfortunately came with yellow and green gummies as well. Thankfully I took care of that problem before it got out of hand!)
Imagine then my disbelief and immense frustration when I discovered that it was not the Tic Tacs that were glaringly golden, but the container! "Oh, traitorous country!" I howled in shock. A few Australians looked on, perplexed with my ignorance.
"Silly Kim," they said. "Tic Tacs have always been white. Didn't you know that? Hadn't you bought Tic Tacs before?"
"No!" I declared, adamently sticking to my guns, "they come in orange -- and green, and white!"
"Hmm," they said. "No, no, that's really not so. They've always been white."
"Have not!" I continued. "They definitely come in orange."
Sometimes I get tripped up remembering exactly what things are like back home, but not this time. My Grandma used to feed me orange Tic Tacs by the dozen (well, okay, she kept them in a drawer in her kitchen, but she always made sure I knew where they were). That was beside the point, though. Tic Tacs have always come in orange. Everyone knows that, and I told them so.
The Australians hemmed and hawed. Clearly, Kim had lost her mind. Unless ... "Perhaps, well, you're a year or two older than us, maybe they used to," they finally managed.
It was the first time anyone'd played the age card on me. I saw it, and raised my ace.
"In America, they make orange Tic Tacs." Lincoln was the 16th President, Albany is the capital of New York and the July Fourth was in 1776, too. Maybe they didn't know it, but I did. And set them straight I did. "I'm positive it's the Tic Tacs themselves," I finished smugly.
Clearly defeated, they gave up the fight. "Maybe in America," they agreed, in tones that indicated you could clearly expect just about anything from a country capable of mass producing squeezable cheese.
But the next day I found myself backtracking. Was I right? Surely those had been orange flavored Tic Tacs Grandma and I used to snack on? Surely I hadn't imagined the whole color? What if they really had been white all along and I'd spent years laboring under the false impression the orange and mint flavors were different, when, in actual fact, they were one in the white same? A dark fear seized hold of me.
I turned to my American co-worker for support.
"Tic Tacs come in orange, right?" I started.
"Of course they do!" she insisted, insulted I'd even bring it up as questionable. "Everyone knows that."
Phew.
So, I stopped in Coles and bought anything orange I could find -- cantalope, persimmons, bbq chips, ginger bears (don't bother asking) and orange Tic Tacs. I was really quite proud of myself. (I'd also bought a bag of gummy goodies that unfortunately came with yellow and green gummies as well. Thankfully I took care of that problem before it got out of hand!)
Imagine then my disbelief and immense frustration when I discovered that it was not the Tic Tacs that were glaringly golden, but the container! "Oh, traitorous country!" I howled in shock. A few Australians looked on, perplexed with my ignorance.
"Silly Kim," they said. "Tic Tacs have always been white. Didn't you know that? Hadn't you bought Tic Tacs before?"
"No!" I declared, adamently sticking to my guns, "they come in orange -- and green, and white!"
"Hmm," they said. "No, no, that's really not so. They've always been white."
"Have not!" I continued. "They definitely come in orange."
Sometimes I get tripped up remembering exactly what things are like back home, but not this time. My Grandma used to feed me orange Tic Tacs by the dozen (well, okay, she kept them in a drawer in her kitchen, but she always made sure I knew where they were). That was beside the point, though. Tic Tacs have always come in orange. Everyone knows that, and I told them so.
The Australians hemmed and hawed. Clearly, Kim had lost her mind. Unless ... "Perhaps, well, you're a year or two older than us, maybe they used to," they finally managed.
It was the first time anyone'd played the age card on me. I saw it, and raised my ace.
"In America, they make orange Tic Tacs." Lincoln was the 16th President, Albany is the capital of New York and the July Fourth was in 1776, too. Maybe they didn't know it, but I did. And set them straight I did. "I'm positive it's the Tic Tacs themselves," I finished smugly.
Clearly defeated, they gave up the fight. "Maybe in America," they agreed, in tones that indicated you could clearly expect just about anything from a country capable of mass producing squeezable cheese.
But the next day I found myself backtracking. Was I right? Surely those had been orange flavored Tic Tacs Grandma and I used to snack on? Surely I hadn't imagined the whole color? What if they really had been white all along and I'd spent years laboring under the false impression the orange and mint flavors were different, when, in actual fact, they were one in the white same? A dark fear seized hold of me.
I turned to my American co-worker for support.
"Tic Tacs come in orange, right?" I started.
"Of course they do!" she insisted, insulted I'd even bring it up as questionable. "Everyone knows that."
Phew.
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