HOT and SPICY!!!!! Say What?

Two days ago I was getting ready to take my morning break. Taking a break like this is kind of new to me so I planned ahead. I'd take it in a grocery store with a coffee break area for the public. Usually I have an orange (in my new, gluten free diet - more about that another time) but today I thought "I SHOULD HAVE A V8!!!". My son, Dan, kind of turned me on to V8. He drinks a large glass every day not only because it tastes good but especially because it's equal to 2 servings of vegetables. So I found the juice aisle and the V8 right in the middle of it. And I was happy to see that they had these handy little six-packs. One can would be just right for my break! So, I bought the six-pack and a newspaper and found a place to enjoy a little down time.

As I scanned the front page of the paper, I absent mindedly opened the V8 and took a drink. Hmmmm. It started to dawn on me that it tasted kind of....peppery? How peculiar. Then I looked at the can right in front of me and saw it. It screamed HOT AND SPICY!! I couldn't believe it. It might as well have been a billboard. And now I felt self conscious. Here I was ... a 62 year-old with Hot And Spicy right in front of me. My mind conjured up pictures of flamenco dancers with smokey HOT SPICY eyes and naughty movies with HOT AND SPICY titles. I wondered if it looked like I thought I was hot and spicy or if it looked like I was looking for hot and spicy

I mused about it throughout the day. How could I have missed HOT AND SPICY right there at eye level in bold letters? Who doesn't notice HOT AND SPICY? Then I berated myself because obviously my eyes were failing and/or I was getting confused and oblivious to what's right in front of me.

After work, in the privacy of my own home, I took out the can to try to figure out how I could have missed something so obvious. And guess what? I just missed it, that's all. It was there but it wasn't in neon. And it didn't say HOT AND SPICY. It said spicy hot. Big deal. Nobody was wondering what that old lady was doing with Hot and Spicy or anything else.

And it occurred to me. Am I creating my own reality. Do I think people see me as different and "old" because that's how I see myself? Maybe people aren't that hard on us oldsters. Maybe we're the ones that are hard on ourselves......

Oh...and for the record, V8 is really VERY good in regular ..... OR Spicy hot!