The Fizzies Challenge

I ponder Fizzies.

Fizzies were basically flavored Alka Seltzer. The IDEA was that you would put some sugar in water, then drop a Fizzies tablet in the water, and a minute or so later, you would have a carbonated fizzy soft drink!

Fizzies kind of sucked. The drink tasted somewhere between Alka Seltzer and Kool Ade that wasn’t really trying. But they were useful for the Fizzies Challenge.

Two kids would meet, with seconds, on the playground. They would face each other, and Fizzies would be handed to each duelist, and a neutral party would count to three. And on three, each duelist would pop the Fizzies into their mouth, and clamp down.

The idea was to be the LAST one to spit it out. The cherry ones in particular were grueling. Imagine extremely sour Pop Rocks that are foaming like mad and WILL NOT STOP! And when your mouth fills with insane fruit sour foam foam FOAAAAAAM, you simply let it dribble down your chin, because spitting at THIS point could contain the foaming tablet, and you could LOSE... or worse, be accused of TRYING TO CHEAT!

So you stood there clenching your teeth and trying not to cry and spewing bloody red foam out of the corners of your mouth and praying that the OTHER bastard would give up FIRST!

More than two could play, and it was a fine way to prove your mettle to your peers without actually having to beat each other up. The grownups did not care for it, though -- they’d see a ring of cheering children, assume a fight had broken out, and break through the crowd to see a couple or three combatants, standing rigid, bug eyed, with tears streaming down their faces and gory red foam leaking from the corners of their mouths, and they were never sure WHAT to think.

My old elementary school eventually outlawed Fizzies for this very reason. It wasn’t fighting, but apparently required SOME sort of adult regulation for ... whatever reason.

And you know what? It might have been weird, but we sure’s hell weren’t eating detergent pods.