Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Toward My Second Youth

Don’t Drink the Water is the first and only play I watched Woody Allen in person on stage. I wonder if a warning was concealed in the title of that play regarding today’s prompt. Don’t Drink the Water was a silly but entertaining comedy, as is this prompt about drinking water from the fountain of youth.

The year I watched that play was 1966 or 1967. It had to do with someone taking pictures in a country behind the iron curtain and causing havoc in the American embassy. Well, we know what happened with the iron curtain and also with Ponce de Leon who was intent in finding the fountain of youth. I bet the same will happen with my blogging and all fountains of youth even before my blog item becomes full.

Although my blogging has gone down the drain of absurdity, Florida, the state I live in, seems to have benefited from Ponce de Leon’s calculations because it offers several tourist-trap fountain-of-youth wells, springs, and water. But then Florida is water or rather watery mud over which cement is poured to create towns and cities. No wonder we have so many sudden sinkholes. Worse yet, some of that water—meaning the water from Ponce de Leon wells-- is said, to be radioactive. The tourism department of Florida may go after my neck for leaking this little bit of information, but what the heck. I am standing by my word, and before taking a sip or two, I’ll still take a guess on how water from such a fountain of youth will work.

I think that water will nuke me to youth. Like a microwave oven. After it spins me around, I won’t care what age I'll become because returning to youth will be so much fun even if by getting nuked--as long as I get to keep my experiences, memories, and what little I have learned so far. Especially since I’ll be joining Charlie ~ ’s World Domination Crew in three years.

Thus it is imperative that someone give me that water before the three-year period is up. What I am aiming at is real youth, and I should turn as young as I can get. Who knows, I might be the first six-month old to rule New Zealand and Australia.

Until someone offers me that water in a fluted champagne glass, as no lesser vessel will do, I’ll be dreaming about the future and hoping that water from the fountain of youth won't become a nightmare.


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Prompt: If there was a real fountain of youth but there is one catch, you don't know what age you will be once you have drank the water. Would you still drink the water and take your chances?