Yesterday I had another brush with what I like to call 'the lemonade paradox', something that probably anyone who's ever made lemonade has experienced.
Back when I was a kid, I used to ask my mom for lemonade all the time, (mostly because she didn't let me have it most of the time), and when I finally get her exasperated she'd get me a lemon and the sugar tin from the cupboard (yeah, 5 feet looked like mount everest back then, I used to think of all kinds of devices I could build to get to that cupboard) and ask me to go make it myself. But she'd always tell me to taste it only after I've added lemon juice and sugar and stirred it really well.
And so, being the kid I was, I'd start tasting from the minute I started squeezing in the lemon, and once I started adding sugar, it never seemed enough, so I'd go on adding spoonfuls of sugar compulsively, and I'd stop after a long time not because the lemonade seemed sweet enough but because the sugar tin was almost empty and I was sure I was gonna get yelled at.
Now, once it was done, I'd go back to my lemonade, and lo and behold! The lemonade had become too sweet. It was now almost inedible, looking more like lemon syrup than juice. And now that I've grown up, I'm beginning to think that the whole thing has been psychological, because if you taste it once you're done, it seems decent and you don't seem to have a problem with it.
Funny, right?
