Pepsi vs. Coke, Deposits

[Ebony AKA AngieJ]

Truthfully, I thought everybody drank Pepsi until college.

I remember being a kid and everybody making fun of the 
disgusting "new Coke".  In the 1980s in Detroit, Coke was considered 
too syrupy, too sweet, and too uncool for consumption by normal 
people.  I mean, *Michael Jackson* drank Pepsi.  Enough said.

My dad drank a bottle of Pepsi with dinner every day until he died.  
I am not making this up.  The few times my mother forgot to buy some 
and the house didn't have a drop of Pepsi, he would grab his keys and 
leave without another word... he'd return after a while with a case 
of Pepsi.

My parents' Pepsi jones ran so deep that for most of my childhood, my 
sisters and I were not allowed to drink that ambrosia.  The rule 
was "Kool-aid for kids and Pepsi for adults."  So I make it a point 
to pour myself a tall glass of Pepsi whenever I'm over my mother's 
house... I'm working through childhood issues of deprivation, I guess.

When Pepsi (and everyone else) stopped making glass bottles, my 
father saved the last one in the case and placed it in the china 
cabinet as a shrine to his favorite drink.  It's still there.

And then I lived in North Florida for four years and some change... 
and found out that nobody in the South drinks Pepsi.

It's all Coke... and RC... and Chek... and all sorts of other weird 
drinks.  In order to get a taste of Pepsi, you had to go to KFC or 
Taco Bell... and it *still* didn't taste the same.

Pepsi preference aside, the best array of soft drinks is Faygo.  
Another Midwestern thing, I'm sure... perhaps Michigan only.  Faygo 
comes in about as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins ice cream does, and 
costs anywhere from fifty-nine to ninety-nine cents a bottle plus 
deposit.  Good stuff!  My favorite flavors are Rock and Rye (cream 
soda), Twist (lemon-lime), and Redpop (strawberry).

Speaking of deposits, that's another thing that's weird here.  We're 
the only state with a 10-cent deposit on almost EVERY soft drink 
container.  (There's another handful of states with a 5-cent deposit 
law).  This means you have to pay for the pop, then add 10 cents to 
EACH bottle or can you purchase.  So if you buy a six-pack of Faygo, 
you're paying the price plus 60 cents.  This means we don't throw 
cans away... we rinse them carefully, we place them in special bins  
in our houses (or stack them on the side of the sink) and then drive 
them faithfully back to the store.  Homeless people and desperate 
college students at Michigan collect empty pop cans for a little 
spare change as well.  ;-)

When I lived in Florida, my housemates saw me saving cans 
frantically, and thought I was a nutcase until I explained.  Then 
they had to tell me "it's okay, Ebony... you can throw it away... 
it's okay."

--Ebony (who really ought to take the 70-odd pop cans and bottles she 
has stashed between her trunk and the coat closet back to the store 
one day... that's a good seven dollars right there, and I could treat 
myself to a matinee.  ;-))