It was the summer of 1984. I was six years old and living with my mother. On this particular weekend, the circus was in town, and she decided she would take me.
After meeting the clowns and riding the elephant, it was time for the show to start. I don't remember much about the show itself, other than the fact that trapeze "artists" that night sucked.
At some point in the evening, my mother bought me a glow necklace.
It was pretty much just like that one. There was one tiny difference, and that will come in to play here presently.
A lot of you will have heard that if you stick a glow necklace in the freezer overnight, it will supposedly last longer. I don't know about the validity behind that line of thinking, but I do know it was something my mother believed.
When we got home from the circus, into the freezer the glow necklace went. And I went to bed.
At around 2:30 a.m., I woke up to go to the bathroom. Before heading back to bed, I decided I was going to sneak a popsicle. I pushed one of the dining room chairs over to the refrigerator, and opened the freezer. The glow necklace caught my eye, the almost haunting green glow illuminating the inside. Something overtook me. I took out the glow necklace and thought, I wonder how this tastes?
This is where that tiny difference I mentioned comes into play. At the bottom the the glow necklace in the picture, you will see a little end piece that holds it into a circle. The piece goes over both ends, which are sealed off. Back thirty years ago, this piece was attached to one end. As I found out that night, if you pull hard enough, you can pop it right open.
Yes, I popped open the glow necklace, and I drank it.
After that, I started crying. It didn't taste good, my tummy hurt, and now I didn't have my glow necklace anymore. I was loud enough that my mother woke up. She came out to see what was wrong, and I somehow managed to tell her through the tears and that weird breathing thing you did as a kid when you were crying.
She rushed me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped, and I never had the urge to drink a glow necklace again.
As for drinking other things that taste bad, well...