So, my neice Aminata was about 4 years old when my wife and I came to visit her one spring. Over the course of our stay, "Cup Juice Milk" was her answer for absolutely EVERYTHING!

"Hey Amina! How have you been?"
"Cup Juice Milk"
We were like... okay?...
"Hey Amina, what's the name of your teddy bear?"
"Cup Juice Milk"
uhh.... that's weird... but okay?...
"Hey Amina wanna go outside and play in the sprinkler?"
"Cup Juice Milk!"

It was super strange, but by the end of the trip had become completely hilarious! She'd say Cup Juice Milk and my wife and I would laugh out loud! We even said it for a while around our friends when we got back home until they became annoyed with our silly inside joke. Regardless Cup Juice Milk had been permanently uploaded into my lexicon...

Fast forward to our next visit to see Aminata that fall for Thanksgiving, we huddle through the door from the cold, drop our luggage, I look over to Amina and say... "Cup Juice Milk"
She just stared back with a puzzled look... so I said it again
"Cup Juice Milk!"
Nothing... crickets... just a complete empty stare... she looked like she thought I was a lunatic. What kind of weirdo would assemble such a bizzarre phrase, why is this man mumbling jibberish at me, and most importantly why is he looking at me like I'm supposed to undestand this verbal incontinence....

Alas, Cup Juice Milk had been just a fleeting phase, a minor passing episode in the brilliant chaos of a 4 year old brain...

The whole thing was a beautiful reminder of how subtle and sometimes imptertinent words could be. Over those intervening months I had sworn to myself that I was going to get to the bottom of what the hell Cup Juice Milk meant. Even if it had meant anything in the past, that was irrelevent now, It was gone forever. Now Cup Juice Milk is just a perfectly random assemblage of sylables that illicits a bizarre curiousity about the world around me, and the thoughts popping in and out of my head trying to describe it.

Thanks Amina