Flashback Friday: Smelling the way it tastes

Yesterday I tried pineapple flavored Mirinda. I'm not sure how I feel about it because we got some pineapple scented Pril, a German brand of dish soap, a while ago as well. Andrew accidentally used it to mop the floors before Karen got here and, truthfully, the pineapple Mirinda tastes like the way pineapple Pril smells. Not a real pineapple taste, exactly, but more of a manufactured pineapple taste.

Which brings us to my flashback, again taking place in Russia. There are a lot of those, I guess.

We were having FHE at my friend Alla's parents. Alla wasn't there because she was in America, getting ready to attend school at BYU. Although Alla is a member of the church, her parents are not. They would be excellent members if they were, though! They live the word of wisdom, go to church every Sunday, have FHE every Monday. They're a great couple and adopted all of us; we always got great, big hugs from Tatiana every time we saw her.

As a side note, their house was also great. They built it themselves, which I think is amazing. It is kind of cabin-esque, with very steep stairs and wood floors and walls. The hot water pipe ran up the stairwell like a railing and you had to be careful not to hold it too tightly or you'd get burned. They hung carpets on the walls to keep out the cold and had a cute little kitchen nook that we'd all squeeze around to eat. It was very comfortable and home-sweet-home like.

So, we were at their home with the Elders so that they could teach a "lesson" (read: discussion) for FHE and help translate conversation back and forth between Russian and English. After the lesson we probably played mafia. We played that game a lot in Russia.

After that we went downstairs to the kitchen to squeeze, once more, around their table, making sure that none of the girls sat at a corner spot so we wouldn't harm our chance of getting married one day. Sergi made oladi for us, as usual, while Tanya fixed some homemade maple syrup (she always had mapleine flavoring somehow) and served us compote.

On this particular Monday, Tanya had run out of cherry compote and began serving apricot compote instead, which was really unfortunate because apricot compote isn't nearly as good as cheery compote. In fact, apricot compote isn't very good at all, but we each had our glass of compote and were expected to drink it. It would be terribly rude not to.

So we all held our breath and choked it down.

Tanya must have noticed that we didn't like the compote very much; after all, no one asked for seconds, which we usually did when we were having cherry compote.

She asked us what was wrong. Most of us politely lied, assuring her that the compote was fkusna (delicious) and that we just weren't thirsty.

Staci, however, put on a lovely, cheerful voice and with a big smile on her face sang out, "This tastes the way B.O. smells!"

We all started giggling uncontrollably, which prompted Tanya to ask for a translation.

One of the Elders piped up and, before any of us could intervene on Staci's behalf, said, "She thinks it is the most delicious thing she's ever tasted and definitely wants a second glass!"

Tanya was absolutely beaming while she poured Staci another glass of the putrid smelling, and similarly tasting, apricot compote. She had to choke down a second glass, poor girl.

And that's kind of why I can't decide whether or not I like this pineapple pop. It tastes the way our floors smelled after Andrew mopped them last week...and I'm not sure how I feel about that.