Oh Yeah!

“Oh Yeah!”

If you’re the right age, then you’ll know who’s catchphrase that is. Yup, it was Kool-Aid Man. That guy was everywhere, destroying public and private property by bursting through walls and quenching the thirst of any dehydrated child who called upon his name. Oh, yeah.

Through the use of Kool-Aid points—a system ingeniously created by the executives to sell more Kool-Aid (on the back of each packet of Kool-Aid there was a small square with a single Kool-Aid point on it unless you had a special packet that could be worth two or three or four or five points)—both my sister and I had saved up and sent in for (along with a self-addressed stamped envelope) and received our own Kool-Aid Man cup. Oh yeah!

The cup wasn’t really impressive, save for the fact that it had Kool-Aid man’s face on it so when you drank your Kool-Aid you could see him smiling back at you as if to deliver a direct, and personal, “Oh Yeah!” Oh yeah, Kool-Aid Man! Oh, yeah. It was awesome. And white. Both things are about the cup. It was awesome to have and it was a white plastic. Well, it wasn’t 100% opaque plastic. It was white in color, but with a transparency to it, which was super cool when you put your Kool-Aid in it because then it was kinda like the real Kool-Aid Man filled with Kool-Aid. Because you could see the color through the cup. Like in real life. Real life being the television commercials where a giant, sentient glass pitcher of Kool-Aid, with arms and legs bashes through a wall and pours you an ice-chilled glass of himself from another, smaller pitcher that he carried through the debris.

Sorry, that went on for a while.

Anyway, because my sister didn’t like it when I used her cup (I could never tell them apart but she could—they were identical), she wrote, in itty-bitty, teeny-weeny, tiny-whiny letters, ‘ERIN’ on the underside bottom of her cup. In permanent marker. Okay, now I knew. But, I would often forget to look before I filled up the Kool-Aid Man cup and she would get mad at me. Honestly, I wasn’t doing it on purpose. It just kept happening. That, however, one day, would all come to an end.

It was just another cold Montana winter and I was looking forward to playing some video games on a Saturday afternoon. The best part was that my father had recently made a fire in the downstairs fireplace. So, there was that lovely residual heat coming off that big steel box which was right near the TV set—where the Atari was plugged in.

Oh, yeah. Atari. The Atari 2600. This was long before Playstation, or Nintendo, or that X-thingy. This was one of the original home entertainment systems. Hours of playtime absolutely lost. There was no save. Ever. You just played until you were done, turned it off, and walked away. When you wanted to play again you just put in a game cartridge, flipped the power switch, and played. That was it. It was that easy. Okay, sometimes the games were sophisticated enough that you could select through a variation or two, but still it was that easy. My family had that console for decades.

All the same, it was still just another cold Montana winter’s day. I had collected my Kool-Aid Man cup, filled it with water, and headed downstairs for some Atari time. As I neared the system, I thought it best to set my cup away from the electronics (in case I knocked it over and it spilled onto the electrics). Even at eight years old I was trying to think ahead. As I glanced about the family room, I had what I thought were two options: The glass-top coffee table, or the stove.

I figured that if I put it behind me—on the coffee table, I would forget about it (outta sight, outta mind, sort of thing). So, naturally, I opted for the stovetop. What could it hurt? The fire had died out, so, no worries. Besides, it only takes a few seconds to plug in a game cartridge, turn on the television, and flip the power switch on the Atari. It actually took longer to type the process than it did to perform those actions. In no time at all I was gaming my way through pixellated heaven.

“What is that?!” Erin had come down the stairs and apparently found something she didn’t like.

Nervously, I glanced around to see what she had seen while trying not to be destroyed by flying demons. “What is what?”

“That, there.”

That wasn’t helping. I spun my head about harder. I couldn’t see anything amiss.

“That, there. On the fireplace,” she clarified.

I stood up. I was more curious than anything now. Besides, I wasn’t very good at Imagic’s 1982 Demon Attack anyway. I would just start from the beginning because I was already about to give up my last life. As soon as I stood up, I spotted what had grabbed Erin’s attention.

Our stove was one of those big fellas with a door that had two handles on the outboard sides of a hatch that hinged downward. It had the kind of top that could be used as a cooking range, due to its large flat surface. I’m sure most of you have seen them before. I loved that thing. It was about three to four feet tall (I think) and so, when Erin asked “What is that?” it made perfect sense why I couldn’t see what ‘that’ was, due to sitting on my butt in front of the television, the stovetop was above my head, and thus, out of my purview.

Now, however, I saw it. Whatever ‘it’ had been previously, it was now a large, slightly misshapen disk of goo. No, not goo. It was solid. It was a sort of white color, with portions of black in it. Like a post-Ghostbusters encounter Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. “I have no idea…” I really didn’t. I was so confused. Both Erin and I looked around to see where it could have dripped from. Nowhere. I tentatively touched it. It was warm but not too warm. So had it been warm before? The stove was pretty cool at this point, so-o whatever that meant. What could it have been?

Yeah, sure, you’ve probably figured it all out. Probably because you only had all the events going through your mind for only a few minutes. I had been playing the Atari for at least an hour. I had forgotten. It was the Kool-Aid man cup. Oh, yeah…

Everything was perfect. Everything. The residual heat temperature of the stove was just enough to soften the plastic cup and melt it. The cold water in the cup was the right temperature to retard the melting process so that no water spilled over and made sizzling sounds. The whole thing melted so slowly that there was no fire or smoke—I would have seen the smoke. There wasn’t even a plastic-melting smell. And, as mentioned before, when it was noticed, the plastic was cool enough to the touch. It popped right off the stove and made an okay frisbee.

As a wrap-up—which you may have also guessed—it wasn’t my cup. Oh yeah.

Now, what else is there to do? Kinda like this blog (I know what I wrote). I started this blog back in 2019 for an college assignment. When contemplating what to make my blog about, I decided to write down the stories that I had always intended to write (posterity). And, I have pretty much done that. My first story was about how I broke into a bank (true events). I have tried to avoid opinion posts, as I don’t like writing those (sometimes views change). So, this is it.

Sort of.

I will endeavor to continue with regular Minion Monday posts—I may try other things. And, I will still post other stories—just intermittently (no set schedule). Thank you all for subscribing and reading and liking. This has been fun.

Until next time. Again, thank you all.