One summer afternoon, after all my caterpillars were fed and we'd finished with building dams down at the stream around the corner for the morning, my friend Barb and I headed back to my house and went into the kitchen.

While we were pulling things out of the fridge to make sandwiches, Barb came up with an idea. She started pulling all the condiments out of the fridge.

"Hey, what are you doing? My mom's right upstairs!" I whispered loudly.

"Let's make a concoction out of this stuff," she said.

"Well, okay, but hurry up," I said.

I climbed on the kitchen counter and opened the cupboard. I took out one of the huge plastic cups Mom kept on the top shelf.

Once I got down, I quickly abandoned making sandwiches in lieu of this new project. We poured pickle juice, mustard, ketchup, lemon juice, worchestershire, italian salad dressing, french salad dressing, and horseradish in the cup. We added some Hawaiian Punch Kool-aid for liquidity, and I even thought to pull out some red vinegar and brown sugar from the cupboard to top it off.

We took a wooden spoon and mixed it around. The mixture left a red stain on the wood, which I quickly washed off before putting the spoon in the dishwasher.

I grabbed the glass from Barb, and took a big whiff.

"Ugh! This is horrible!"

"Yep. And guess what we're going to do with it?" she said.

My stomach dropped. Although I was somewhat fond of torturing our two little sisters, sometimes Barb's ideas went a little over the top, and for some reason I could not contest anything when she had a plan to carry out.

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