Paying for prepackaged flavored water ought to be as embarrassing as paying someone to come around and set the clock on our VCR. If we can create our own web pages and burn our own CDs, we should be able to create custom soft drinks.

Buy some key limes (10 cents each at my local grocery store), and a lime squeezer. A lime squeezer is a hand-operated metal gizmo that squeezes limes and filters out the seeds. (Resist the urge to buy a fancy electric citrus juicer or an internet-connected, GPS-enabled lime squeezer. Squeezing the lime by hand is an important part of the experience.)

Cut a lime in half and squeeze each half into a glass. Then fill the rest of the glass with regular or bubbly mineral water, and stir.

This really tastes great! After getting accustomed to this drink, I find that artificially flavored, corn-syrup-laden lemon/lime soft drinks taste terrible by comparison. And I look forward to the enjoyable little details of making one: slicing the lime, the satisfying "squoosh" of squeezing it, the scent of fresh citrus . . . like making tea, it is a fun little ritual.