Watermelon flavored Hint water (the sparkling version, of course). If Elton John were a beverage, that’s the one he’d be. We can all agree on that, right? Or that Barack Obama would be blueberry soda in a glass bottle? You understand that, too, don’t you? At the very least, please tell me you can see how Pete Davidson would be a cup of skim milk. There’s no way you can refute that one. Maybe this sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you, but to me this is Common Sense by Ellie’s brain. Every person I know, and every celebrity too, is analogous to a beverage in my mind. Think synesthesia, but exclusively with beverages. One may wonder why exactly this happens, and I wish I had a clue. What I can tell you, though, is that there is little I can do to stop it from happening.
In all honesty, I don’t think there is a good explanation for why one of my friends reminds me exactly of the “Yumberry Pomegranate” flavor of Sobe Lifewater, a product I have not had in over a decade. I put a great deal of thought into finding the drink that best captures her essence, as I do for all of my friends, but here I mean the word “thought” very loosely. My thought process in deciding the beverage that embodies my friend most perfectly is one based solely on vibes, which is generally antithetical to my nature. As an overthinker who never takes anything at face value, the idea of having my rationale for something be that it “felt right” seems so wrong and out of character. Still, it is nice to be okay with the sensical nonsense conceived by my brain.
Whenever I describe my thoughts to other people, I describe them as a forest with a narrow path running through it. As I navigate through life, conversations, and ideas both big and small, I walk along the narrow path, trying to maintain sight of my destination, whether that be a goal I am trying to reach or a point I am trying to make. I try to keep my thoughts from wandering too far off the path, since this leads me to fall down rabbit holes of thoughts (one of those being the whole people-as-beverages ordeal). But when I do choose to entertain these thoughts, and let my brain be uninhibited in silly ruminations that are far from relevant to anything that actually matters, I end up constructing worlds of my own, swinging from the trees in my forest of thoughts, pulling together the most seemingly unrelated ideas.
On my phone, I have lists upon lists of people as beverages, people as dog breeds, people as colors, and so on. I cannot do something as simple as take a sip of water without thinking about the people who matter to me whose personas make me feel the same way as I do during my water-drinking experience. And while calling Pete Davidson skim milk may seem like an insult, that is not my intention. The King of Staten Island himself is quite the icon, and skim milk is just who he is. It is possible that my comparison arises subconsciously from his translucent and milky complexion, but that logic does not apply to most other beverages I associate with people. Plus, it is more fun to believe that there is a random absurdity about it all—an absurdity that somehow just makes sense.
I am not being all that serious, but I do believe that my endless thinking leads to bizarre and outlandish comparisons. Ultimately, however, they are indicative of the qualities associated with a particular person or thing. For example, my friend is similar to Sobe Lifewater in that she reminds me of a childhood friend I used to have, back when I used to enjoy the beverage. Like I said before, it’s not that this will ever make total sense to a person who isn’t me. Still, I have a good time thinking about such trivial yet all-encompassing ideas.
If it were not for my overly analytical nature and chronically understimulated brain, I am not sure what my thoughts would look like. They certainly would not be comprised of debates regarding whether Rihanna is more of a birch beer or Vanilla Coke. And while I am sure that most of the outlandish conceptions of my brain are not going to change the world, a little brain wandering is not such a bad thing.
