No Ice

No Ice

 

Yes, this could be my sign at the No King’s Rally tomorrow. But it actually is a new decision to always decline ice with my drink on the plane or at the restaurant. Why?

 

1)   I could treat it as a mild protest to what’s going on in our country.

2)   Chinese medicine suggests cold drinks aren’t that great for you. 

3)   But looking at all the ice in my restaurant drink and finishing it in five sips, I realized you can get almost twice as much liquid if you leave out the ice—for the same price.

4)   The poet Wendell Berry said something to the effect of “I don’t use ice in my drinks. I like them to taste the same at the end as at the beginning.”

 

I think number 3 is the strongest reason (though it occurs to me one could ask for ice on the side—that would solve both reasons 3 and 4.)

 

But number 4 can connect with the opening sentence. When ice melts into the drink, it indeed dilutes the full flavor so that it’s a different drink at the end—less itself— than it was at the beginning. And so the other ICE is trying (and for what?) to dilute the full flavor of the country’s beautifully diverse gathering of people and cultures. Goodness knows an entire culture out-sourced to generic shopping malls, chain stores and restaurants, housing developments with each house built the same, one-size-fits-all education, food stripped of its essence with artificial substitutes for natural flavors and nutrients, minds stripped of their intelligence as AI takes over, has already lost whatever character it once had. Now one more blow again restoring authenticity and the power of diversity. 

 

So next time you order your drink without ice, consider what a radical act of resistance that is!