The crazy green water.

Since last week, I've been battling a nasty cold. I don't know if it's the result of my body being shocked having finished the marathon, or a combination of this crazy Florida weather going from blistery cold to sweaty hot. But I spent most of the weekend in bed trying to sleep it off.

On Sunday, too weak to get up and go to church, my stubborn big girl self finally gave in to the little girl inside of me and called my mom pleaing for some of her homemade chicken soup. Like the famous book says, who knows if it really helps the body, but chicken soup sure is good for the soul.

The overachiever healer that my mom is, she didn't just come over with a pot of chicken soup, she also came over with a whole bag of healing remedies. As she pulled one bottle out of the bag, there it was in front of me, a bottle of chlorophyll, my worst enemy from that horrible middle school day.

It was, oh, maybe 1993. A fragile 7th grader that I was, I remember days upon days that I would sit at the lunch table and not peep a word while I listened to other girls chat about their exciting 7th grader lives. I was a basket of insecurities with my dorky Urkel-sized glasses, frizzy permed hair, and braces trying to tame my buck teeth. I was already naturally shy, and now conquering the world of middle school popular girls and bullies intimidated the heck out of me. Then there was lunch time, that sacred time to feel like I belonged, a time to fight for the good seat at the lunch table, a time to spy on the cute boys across the cafeteria who had no idea I existed, a time to admire the popular cheerleaders wishing I could be half as cool.

Then the dreaded day came... I opened up my lunch bag my mom had packed and pulled out... the green water bottle.

Mind you, this was not a water bottle that was green, this was a water bottle that had green water in it. I took a deep breath swearing I was never going to talk to my mom again, didn't she know middle school was tough enough WITHOUT having green water?

One of the girls next to me quickly grabbed the green water bottle out of my hands and said "WHAAAAAAT IS THAT????"

"It's chlorophyll water," I shyly tried to brush off.

As the green water bottle got yanked out of my hands and tossed around the cafeteria with everyone oohing and awwing and teasing, I just wanted to get it back and pretend I never pulled it out in the first place. I tried to explain to people that it was a healthy supplement my health-food-nut mom added to the water, similar to the chlorophyll in plants we were learning about in science class... but that didn't help any.

I finally got the green water bottle back and tucked it back in my lunch bag counting down the minutes that lunch would be over and I could stop being the green water bottle freak. Later that day when I got home, I threw the green water bottle back in my mom's face and told her to never surprise me with weird things in my lunch again. It was one to thing to have it privately at home, but when it came to my lunches at school, I just wanted a normal water bottle, and a normal sandwich without sprouts on it, and normal potato chips without brewer's yeast on it. I wanted the normal junk everyone else was eating!

The next day at lunch, when I pulled out my normal water bottle, I got more weird looks from girls at my table.

"Where is the green water?" one asked.

"I told my mom I didn't like it," I answered praying we could change the subject away from yesterday's embarrassment.

"That's a shame," she said, "I thought it was pretty cool. I went home and told my mom I wanted green water too but she had no idea what I was talking about."

I couldn't believe it. For that moment in time, I had become a trendsetter with my crazy green water. I went home that afternoon and told my mom I was sorry and that I would proudly drink that crazy green water if she wanted to start giving it to me again. I took it school the rest of the year, and it was funny how everyday my friends wanted to drink my green water, even though it tasted just like theirs.

I hadn't seen the chlorophyll bottle since around that time, until yesterday, when mom brought it out again in her attempt to heal me with nature's best.

"Remember this stuff?" she asked.

"Oh trust me, yes," I answered.

"Well I want you to start adding drops in your water, I mean, if you want, you don't have to. I can take it home if you won't really use it, but I thought it might help," she explained.

"It's ok," I told her, "You can leave it, I'll use it." Proudly.