Rambling Rhodes

A Lifetime of Pepsi Loyalty Deserves a Car

I’m trying to win a car from Pepsi, because I think it’s way past time for Pepsi to bestow a car upon me for all my years of Pepsi loyalty. When I think back on all the Pepsi products I’ve bought and consumed over the years, I feel a Lamborghini may be in order.

What few people know is that Pepsi is, in fact, a gateway soda, just like marijuana is a gateway drug. Oh, sure, I started on Pepsi as a child, but as I got older I was tempted to try Crystal Pepsi, which was an abomination against soda. What was Pepsi thinking?

Pepsi CHEMIST: Eureka! I’ve created a clear, caffeine-free cola that tastes pretty much exactly like regular Pepsi!

Pepsi EXECUTIVE: Um, why?

Pepsi CHEMIST: I have no idea! That’s the beauty of it! It’s revolutionary and completely unnecessary, like New Coke!

Pepsi EXECUTIVE: Excellent! New Coke was a success, wasn’t it? Nevermind. Let’s call this new clear soda. . . Crystal Pepsi!

And so a bad idea was born. And of course I had to try it, and of course I went right on back to regular Pepsi, and I stayed with regular Pepsi all through college, at which point Pepsi unveiled Pepsi One. Pepsi One, according to a very animated Cuba Gooding, Jr., packed all the goodness of regular Pepsi into a single, solitary calorie. And, being a recent college graduate who now concerned himself with things like “calories,” I made the shift to Pepsi One, which was followed several months later by the move to Diet Pepsi all together.

I’ve been a very loyal Diet Pepsi consumer now going on eight years so, as I said, I think Pepsi owes me a car, and quite probably a new stomach lining. I mean, seriously, have you ever looked at the list of ingredients in Diet Pepsi? What am I thinking? I’d be better off taking up smoking, or maybe Russian roulette.

But no, I’ll stick with Diet Pepsi, because I believe in a very slow, carbonated, caffeine-assisted suicide. That, and I simply can’t stand coffee.

Anyway, Pepsi is currently running a “Free Ride” sweepstakes, during which time one lucky winner each day will be selected to win a customized Subaru Impreza WRX, which sounds like a variant of the Asian bird flu, but is, in fact, a car. Or at least it better be.

To register to win a car, you simply have to have absolutely no life whatsoever. And, since I work in an office environment, I qualify! Basically, this is how it works: you buy a 20 oz. bottle of the Pepsi product you prefer, and unscrew the cap. Up to this point, it’s pretty much like a regular soda drinking experience. But here’s where it gets crazy insane, by which I mean monotonously boring. You look under the cap, where there’s a code (A code!). You then go to a very specific Web site, which requires you to register (which of course means junk mail and spam within a few weeks), after which you enter your code (A code!) to qualify for that day’s drawing. Of course, I’m up against over 10,000+ other people with no life and a Pepsi product addiction each day, but at least I have the glimmer of hope I’ll win a car.

This is what my life’s been reduced to. It’s kind of sad, really.

Posted by Ryan at February 15, 2007 10:58 AM | TrackBack