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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ebony,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I read your mail, and realised that my jaw was
dropping an extra centimetre with every line of text. We were brought up under
such different circumstances, and yet, we're so alike.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>For one - I, too, pour myself a tall glass of coke
every time I'm at my parent house (although I never drink it <VBEG>). The
reasons are quite similar. Only difference - my father's still alive, which
means I don't go there that often <G>.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well, those were two similarities, actually.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The third is the bottles. Here, there's a 30 cents
deposit for glass bottles, so we definitely keep them. Problem is, I constantly
forget to take them to the store, so we've got about 70 bottles waiting. To
connect this to Carole's thread - we keep them inthe patio
:).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>BTW - As a child, I thought that the ultimate
syrupy soft drink was Rum. I mean, otherwise, why would ship-wreck survivors in
all the books be so happy to find a barrel full of it? :)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Thanks, Yael<BR></DIV>
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style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A href="mailto:ebonyink@hotmail.com" title=ebonyink@hotmail.com>Ebony AKA
AngieJ</A> </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><TT>Truthfully, I thought everybody drank Pepsi until
college.<BR><BR>I remember being a kid and everybody making fun of the
<BR>disgusting "new Coke". In the 1980s in Detroit, Coke was considered
<BR>too syrupy, too sweet, and too uncool for consumption by normal
<BR>people. I mean, *Michael Jackson* drank Pepsi. Enough
said.<BR><BR>My dad drank a bottle of Pepsi with dinner every day until he
died. <BR>I am not making this up. The few times my mother forgot
to buy some <BR>and the house didn't have a drop of Pepsi, he would grab his
keys and <BR>leave without another word... he'd return after a while with a
case <BR>of Pepsi.<BR><BR>My parents' Pepsi jones ran so deep that for most of
my childhood, my <BR>sisters and I were not allowed to drink that
ambrosia. The rule <BR>was "Kool-aid for kids and Pepsi for
adults." So I make it a point <BR>to pour myself a tall glass of Pepsi
whenever I'm over my mother's <BR>house... I'm working through childhood
issues of deprivation, I guess.<BR><BR>When Pepsi (and everyone else) stopped
making glass bottles, my <BR>father saved the last one in the case and placed
it in the china <BR>cabinet as a shrine to his favorite drink. It's
still there.<BR><BR>And then I lived in North Florida for four years and some
change... <BR>and found out that nobody in the South drinks Pepsi.<BR><BR>It's
all Coke... and RC... and Chek... and all sorts of other weird
<BR>drinks. In order to get a taste of Pepsi, you had to go to KFC or
<BR>Taco Bell... and it *still* didn't taste the same.<BR><BR>Pepsi preference
aside, the best array of soft drinks is Faygo. <BR>Another Midwestern
thing, I'm sure... perhaps Michigan only. Faygo <BR>comes in about as
many flavors as Baskin-Robbins ice cream does, and <BR>costs anywhere from
fifty-nine to ninety-nine cents a bottle plus <BR>deposit. Good
stuff! My favorite flavors are Rock and Rye (cream <BR>soda), Twist
(lemon-lime), and Redpop (strawberry).<BR><BR>Speaking of deposits, that's
another thing that's weird here. We're <BR>the only state with a 10-cent
deposit on almost EVERY soft drink <BR>container. (There's another
handful of states with a 5-cent deposit <BR>law). This means you have to
pay for the pop, then add 10 cents to <BR>EACH bottle or can you
purchase. So if you buy a six-pack of Faygo, <BR>you're paying the price
plus 60 cents. This means we don't throw <BR>cans away... we rinse them
carefully, we place them in special bins <BR>in our houses (or stack
them on the side of the sink) and then drive <BR>them faithfully back to the
store. Homeless people and desperate <BR>college students at Michigan
collect empty pop cans for a little <BR>spare change as well.
;-)<BR><BR>When I lived in Florida, my housemates saw me saving cans
<BR>frantically, and thought I was a nutcase until I explained. Then
<BR>they had to tell me "it's okay, Ebony... you can throw it away... <BR>it's
okay."<BR><BR>--Ebony (who really ought to take the 70-odd pop cans and
bottles she <BR>has stashed between her trunk and the coat closet back to the
store <BR>one day... that's a good seven dollars right there, and I could
treat <BR>myself to a matinee. ;-))<BR></TT></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>