Smile-breaks
Mostly I Forget About the Snapple
Mostly I forget about the Snapple. The Pepsi’s too acidic and you canonly have so many refills of iced tea before you float out the doorwithout paying your tab. So quite often I settle for water, unless it’smorning and then a steaming hot cup of coffee is the only sensible choice.
Sometimes in the evening I remember the fine taste of a light wine andorder that to go with my spicy Mexican fare. But mostly I forget aboutthe Snapple. So the other night at the Salsa place, I was delighted whenI remembered. I really didn’t want another glass of cool, tasteless waterand Sprite or Pepsi was out of the question and like I said, you can onlydrink so much iced tea before you… Suddenly I remembered the Snapple. Was reminded of the Snapple -
The list of drinks on the tri-fold paper reminded me there’s more to lifethan Pepsi, tea and water. There’s Snapple! Sweet flavor without thebubbles. Cool refreshment without the lemon. And no refills. Absolutelyno refills.
So I ordered Snapple. “What kinds do you have?” I asked.
“Oh, I think strawberry-kiwi and…”
“That’s great! I’ll take the strawberry-kiwi,” I said, and dipped my chipinto the salsa. I don’t know why I never remember the Snapple. I dippedanother chip into the salsa.
Turns out, according to the label on the bottle, I didn’t just getSnapple. I didn’t just get a strawberry-kiwi flavored drink. I got TheOfficial Drink of Marsupials. Kiwi juice, that is. Not the strawberrypart.
I had to think for a minute about what marsupials are, but slowly my mindcleared and an image of a kangaroo drinking kiwi juice appeared. I madean observation aloud about kangaroos and marsupials, and just then thefellow across the table from me mentioned the koala bear. And there itwas, hugging a tree on the Snapple bottle.
This whole revelation caused me to do some serious reflecting. Why was ahuman drinking the official drink of a marsupial? Did I look like amarsupial? Would I look like a marsupial the morning after?
I twisted the cap off the bottle and laid it on the table. There was oneof those bottle cap messages printed inside. Hoping I’d won, Iscrutinized the tiny blue letters.
“Only male turkeys gobble.” This was hard to take. I was still digestingthe fact that I was about to drink the official drink of kangaroos andkoalas and now I had to consider the significance of this new information,which according to the cap was “Real Fact #112.” I never knew kangarooscared so much about turkeys, but evidently they do or I’m sure they wouldhave chosen some other Real Fact to be rated #112.
So now I was aware that marsupials drink kiwi juice and that femaleturkeys don’t gobble – or can’t. Or won’t. Or shouldn’t in politecompany. If a lady turkey gobbles and no one’s in the room… ? Nevermind.
While I was considering all this – with far too many inadvertent chuckles – I think maybe the fellow across the table went home. I was having sucha good time with my Snapple bottle, I couldn’t tell you whether he did ornot.
This was the very best kind of entertainment - Educational Entertainment. Real Facts. I’m pushing it here, I know. Entertainment is one thing andEducation is quite another, but here I was, laughing over my enchilada andplanning to rush home and log on to Snapple dot com to see what the otherone hundred and eleven (or were there more?) Real Facts were.
Mostly I forget about the Snapple - but I think it will be hard to forgetabout the Snapple this month. Especially if the turkey gobbles.