During a rather lively discussion on the topic of Vanilla Coke today (I am strongly for it, he is strongly against it) and other flavors that can be added to the fizzy, sugar-water that is the most popular brand in the Milky Way and several lesser galaxies.

I was arguing in favor of cherry Coke, but only if using real cherry syrup–not that God-awful pre-cherried stuff when my friend mentioned suicides…

A suicide–for those of you not familiar with the term–is a mixture of all the soft-drink choices a fountain has to offer. You just put a squirt of each in your cup until it’s full. Surprisingly there is damn little on the Internet about making suicides, maybe the name has something to do with that? Whatever the reason, and whatever the lack of information on the Internet; an informal poll of my friends reveals this meme seems to be embedded into the minds of twenty-some things.

The mere mention of a suicide brought back fond memories of fifth-grade skating parties. We seemed to have one about every eight weeks. We went to a dinky little roller-skating rink with a small arcade, a dance floor that we all stayed the heck away from (in the fifth grade, girls have cooties big time) and a grungy little food counter.

The food was mostly of the hot-dog and popcorn variety, the candy selection immense! In-fact with your skate-party-admission-ticket you could get a hot-dog, popcorn and coke for $1.75. The coup de grace of the evening was making a suicide because although it was a grubby little place they had a staggering array of nozzles on their soft-drink fountain! There must have been 8 or 10 selections and nothing was diet! It was an orgy of caffeine and sugar, and there were usually no adults around to tell us we shouldn’t mix every flavor together.

And mix flavors we did! Ye gods, we were the kings of the skate-rink and the cola was our servant! If we were feeling especially plucky, we would approach the counter and ask for a squirt–maybe even a double squirt–of cherry syrup to add to the sugary goodness.

Ahh…those were good times. And while the skating rink has since been turned into Triangle Auto Body my memories of my youth and those fifth grade skating parties–and suicides–will remain.

Good times…