Thoughts on Soda

Come on people, lets use these interwebs for social upheaval and progressive reform! Lets bring about a revolution. A LOVE revolution. Let's talk about soda.

Let me first state that I love soda. I love the stuff. I know it's just carbonated water and corn syrup. I know that it's destroying my physical appearance each and every day. And I know that it will soon claim me and leave me to rest in an early grave. But I don't care. I love it. However, I do not love these constant attempts to pervert and destroy my bubbly mistress. Like he did with sex, Satan has taken something holy and turned it into something dirty, dangerous, soul crushing even, and here's how he's doing it.

BIG CUPS/SHORT STRAWS: It's something we've all experienced. You buy a soda at the theater. Your choices are LARGE, BUCKET and TROUGH. You take your straw, you plunge it through the skin of the plastic lid and into the tingling life-blood inside. You drink for a bit, the amount gets lower, you push the straw down, you drink, the amount gets lower, you push the straw down, you drink, the amount gets lower, YOU PUSH THE STRAW DOWN. The straw is no longer in the lid at all, but instead it's disappeared in the canyon you have sitting between your legs, cooling your inner thighs (because no theater cups ever fit into their puny cup holders). A question arises....HOW FUCKING HARD IS IT TO PURCHASE SLIGHTLY LONGER STRAWS? I'd rather not have to raspberry the lid of my soda in public, or worse yet, look like some perv suckling at some plastic tit. And everyone knows you don't lift the lid and sip at the stuff like some fucking yuppie. Aw hell naw, you don't; not if you want pussy that night.

WATERED DOWN SODA/TOO MUCH ICE: These are actually two separate problems but they are both tantamount to a greater evil: Greed. Look you bastards, we're already paying extra for your fountain drinks. For every dollar fifty we spend you spend probably 4 cents. Not a bad racket. And yet you greedy fucks still have to squeeze and squeeze just to save another cent or two, fucking over the poor son of a bitch that just wants to drink a nice cup of caramel colored sugar water. When I go to a place with fountain drinks, I expect TOO MUCH syrup. If you guys had any sense of history, you'd know there were once places known as soda fountains, where "pop" was the backbone of the establishment. How was this so when some jackass could just go to the corner store and pick up a bottle of Coca Cola ® for half the price and twice the drink? Because those irresponsible fountain owners would load those drinks up with so much goddamn syrup you had a good chance of contracting diabetes just by smelling the fucking place. Who knows how many kids had to have their feet sawed off later in life because of those white wonderlands of brown water? Even a heartless juggernaut like RC ® wasn't cold enough to endorse such flagrant disregard for the public's health and everyone loved the fountain owners for it. And yet you've taken the opposite approach. "Water it all down! No one will notice!" Well I noticed, bud, and I'm taking down your name. Yes, I have a blackbook of fast food establishments I will not buy soda from, because of their watered down product. For example, the Del Taco on Newport? Awful soda. The McDonalds on Florida next to Girard? Excellent soda. Who do you think gets my dollar fifty? You're damn right.

And now for the loading up of ice. Oh, it's a nice trick, motherfuckers. Put so much goddamn ice that no matter what size drink you pay for, you'll still get the same amount. Like this is some cosmic joke played by the gods. Well, I spit in the cloudy moon eyes of all of the gods! Some ask for "easy ice" like some fag. Well not me. I order no ice. And in case it gets warm, I order a separate cup of ice (at no extra charge) so I can put in those frosty cubes at my own discretion. I wouldn't trust some illiterate off-the-boat fast food worker with my children, I for damn sure ain't gonna trust them with my ice rationing. 

COMPANY WHORES: It's happened to everyone. You're at a sit down restaurant, you order a Coke ® (no one says 'cola' anymore, it's one of those useless old timey words like 'abstinence'). The waitress stares at you like you're an idiot. "Is Pepsi ®, okay?" Or you order a Sprite ®. "Sierra Mist ®, fine?" Whoah! I'm so fucking sorry I didn't read up on the fact that your employer was affiliated with PepsiCo ® and all of its subsidiaries and products! 

But I don't blame the waitress, or the heartless restaurant mafia that forces her to clarify such tripe. I blame these fucking company whores who swear allegiance to a soda manufacturer (a soda manufacturer!) as if it were a political party or an organized religion. We've all seen these pieces of shit. 

"You got anything to drink?" 

"Yeah, Coke ®" 

"Eeeeww!!! COOOOKE ®!!! Gag!!! I only drink Pepsi ® brand cola products." 

What the fuck? As if your taste buds are so evolved that you could not only tell some kind of minute difference between the two, but that this next step on the human scale was such a leap that it would actually make one of the products not only inferior, but gross! Are you fucking kidding me! This ain't goddamn wine tasting. There's a simple rule in soda making: He with the most sugar wins. I'm sorry if the caramel color fooled you into thinking you were drinking some kind of gourmet product. "Ooh, I can really taste the kola nut extract in this one!" "Aw, the phosphoric acid and glycerin dominate this batch of angel tears." I mean, god, it's just soda. Get a fucking grip!

And really friends, in the end, it is just soda. But it makes everything that much sweeter and should be cared for like a delicate infant, not given over to the wolves of incompetence, greed, and zealotry. Keep it simple. Keep it pure.