"Tales From The Coffee Pot" is another sampler collection of coffee-related humor essays by Michael Pollick. Hang out with Keef Richards, dance a mean bossa nova with Lawrence Welk, enjoy a dead hotdog walking and discover what REALLY happened to Saturday morning cartoons. Look for the entire essay collection, Coffee Can Chronicles, at SMASHWORDS, or order "Collected Works (And Dry Goods)".

FIZZIES: LUKEWARM NECTAR OF THE CHILDHOOD GODS

The other night I asked a bartender to do something I would probably never ask a plastic surgeon or auto mechanic to do- just surprise me. She came back with a drink she called a Nutty Monk- part coffee, part Frangelico and part Irish Cream. I said to myself this has got to be the most adult beverage I've ever tasted. The hazelnut flavor of the Frangelico mixed perfectly with the dark coffee, and the Irish Cream mellowed it all out. Absolutely delicious, I must say.

But if a Nutty Monk was the most adult beverage I'd ever tasted, then what would be my choice for the best childhood beverage? I had the usual suspects (chocolate milk, Nehi sodas, Chillee Willees and milkshakes), but I finally settled on the perfect drink of my earliest childhood- Fizzies.

Fizzies were produced by the fine people who brought us Alka-Seltzer, and after a few Nutty Monks I have begun to appreciate the irony. Fizzies came in the standard cola flavors, like orange, grape, lemon-line and a sort of coca-cola, but my favorite was the root beer. All a kid had to do was plop, plop and wait patiently for the fizz, fizz to die down. Few of us ever waited, which left us with that indescribable feeling of half a seltzer tablet sliding down our gullets. But oh, the flavors that would just burst out of the glass. A day without Fizzies was like a day without sunshine, so we would make sure that mom included them on her shopping list. I can still taste the last Fizzie I ever had.

Alas, Fizzies met an ignoble fate at the hands of modern science. The only sweeteners capable of withstanding the mysterious Fizzie manufacturing process were cyclamates, which were banned from use in American products around 1969. The last Fizzie plopped unceremoniously into its last glass of tap water around 1971 or so. I would like to think of that time as the day the bubbles died. I have found other beverages to replace Fizzies in my glass, but I haven't really found one to replace Fizzies in my heart. Maybe someday I'll ask a bartender to surprise me again, and he'll hand me a Rootbeer Fizzie on the rocks.