Far from smoothie

Jessica, who until the party was 7 going on 8 going on roughly 35, wanted a Jamba Juice machine for her birthday. Not her twin brother’s birthday; her birthday. She had wanted the contraption for Christmas but great public demand matched only by those weird hamster creatures had kept Santa, grandma and assorted aunts and uncles from delivering.

Frankly, it is amazing her interest held between December and February, undistracted by shiny new toys and whatever all the other kids in school had. With that in mind, I figured the Jamba Juice maker must be the 2010 equivalent of my beloved Easy-Bake Oven (On a complete side note, Ronald Howe the inventor of the Easy-Bake Oven headed off to that kitchen in the sky last week. Please bake a cake by the heat of a light bulb in his memory). How could I not come through?

Besides, the juice maker seemed a lot easier to understand than her brother’s requested Playstation/Wii/Xbox/LEGO/Flying Killer type game.

I was wrong.

By the time she had torn through the polka-dot wrapping paper to uncover the long-awaited machine — "Oh no you didn’t!” she exclaimed, somehow missing the phrase’s intended snarky meaning — I’d forgot the frantic calls to numerous Toys "R” Us outlets, the six years spent in line at said store behind some customer who seemed inexplicably to be returning one box of diapers for the exact same box and even the feelings of age and stupidity foisted upon me when I first learned of the must-have Jamba Juice maker.

Can’t I just get you a blender? I had asked. Isn’t that same thing? Or how about a Styrofoam cup from the joint?

Ugh, nooooo.

Translation: You are old and dumb and are probably not cool enough to have even gone to a Jamba Juice.

Duh.

And so we all found ourselves in the kitchen, adult curiosity outweighing the paternal admonition to the birthday girl not to open the box and lose all the pieces.

This won’t be so bad, I figured, eyeballing the thing. It looked like a miniature version of her grandmother’s margarita machine. There was hope after all.

The box promised "EZ-2 make!”

Not so much.

The first mistake might have been not letting Jessica assemble the machine. Out of concern the child I believe will either cure cancer or be the cutest and smartest girl in juvenile hall would whip up a banana and finger smoothie, she was banned from watching how the lid fit on to the carafe which fit on the metal blades while simultaneously fitting on the hinges. Of course, the main reason she didn’t get to see how it assembled was because the adults so set on protecting her couldn’t get it together themselves until long the little girl’s interest went back to her temporary hair streaker kit and the ice cream cake.

Once assembled, the struggle was following the recipe for which none of the exact items were available. A banana was found and, oddly, an apple although none of the merry berry delight pizzazz bliss recipes in the "fun smoothie booklet” called for such an addition. Nonetheless, it was chopped and added along with the quasi-crushed ice. Then the ice was removed — seems it was actually called for after the initial blending. But where was the required orange juice or yogurt? A creative grandfather volunteered an infant cousin’s Crayola-colored electric blue juice. Why not?

Once whirling, the blender sounded akin to a wheezing dog although that canine would have more horsepower than this thing. The added ice did nothing but jam the blades, causing us by turns to undo the carafe — and promptly forget how to reattach it — and shake the pieces loose. No wonder her mother stayed safely in the other room, likely aware of just what delightful times lay ahead helping her daughter perfect smoothie skills.

The final product was a slightly green, slightly frothy concoction filled with ice chunks and resembling nothing a self-respecting Jamba Juice franchise would sell and that neither of the birthday kids finished.

I should have gotten her a gift certificate for a real smoothie, I said.

Or a Magic Bullet, an uncle offered up.

At least the included bottle-shaped brush made the gift a wash; using it to clean away the frighteningly green and chunky contents proved just as satisfying for the birthday girl as watching her elders fail miserable with her toy.

Perhaps that’s the perfect birthday blend: One part wish granted, one part group refusal to follow directions and a strong shot of improvisation. The ice chunks and blue juice are optional.

But just in case I had any qualms about wish fulfillment this year, Jessica and Josh were quick to set my mind at ease before I left the celebration.

"Hey, wanna know what we want for our birthday next year?”

Michelle Durand’s column "Off the Beat” runs every Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102. What do you think of this column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.