Those Little Eureka Moments

Speaking of fruit soup, do you remember the first time you had it? I do, back in about 1987. It was the closer of a late lunch I was having…outdoors, on the sun deck of a little hippie restaurant on San Juan Island, just a few miles offshore from Seattle. I remember tasting my first icy spoonful and thinking: This is amazing! Why haven’t I had anything like this before? Then of course it hit me that I had, only it was in a glass and it was called “juice”. It’s one of those moments when, like in a Warner Borthers cartoon, your self image changes to a jackass. Eee awww. But while on the one hand a moment like that can make you feel like the World’s Greatest Idiot, taken in by some cheap restaurant slight-of-hand, it’s also a vivid demonstration of a how a little change of context can turn something utterly mundane into a whole new experience.