No matter how I try to deny it, I am slowly but surely turning into my father.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. My father is a very cool guy, but he does have certain habits... one of these habits is the fact that he is physically incapable of doing nothing. He's always got to be working on a project, or preferably several at once. His latest project is being mayor of Cormack.

I've started work on a new project: I want to brew some root beer. Normally, this wouldn't be a big project. I'd just run down to the brewing store, pick up some supplies, find a room in the house which I'm free to stink up, and get to work.

I can get cinnamon, liquorice, vanilla, and most of the standard ingredients for root beer. What I can't get is the main ingredient, a tree bark called wintergreen. I can't even get any of the usual substitutes: sasparilla (technically wintergreen is itself a substitute for sasparilla), birch bark, or pre-bottled root beer essence.

What I can get is a wide variety of tree barks and herbs used for brewing "healthy water". Hmm, thinks I, if I substitute mint for the wintergreen and some type of tree bark for the woody flavor, might I not create a reasonable Korean root beer substitute? It might not taste exactly right, but with a bit of experimentation I'm sure I can create something palatable. Maybe even good.

I'll continue this thought on Monday. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Ataraxia Theatre is an anthology of different stories by Joseph Hewitt. It updates every Monday and Thursday.