Have A Good Sandwich

I have a confession to make.   A post by Amy brought this small footnote of my life to full recollection.   Yes, it’s true:  I was one of the 100 people in America that loved Crystal Pepsi.  Not only loved it but bough A LOT of it.  I’d be horrified to know exactly how much I spent on it during the sixth month span I was really into it.

Every morning on my way to school during the my senior year driving through the early morning mists, I stopped at the APlus convenience store on the corner of Rt. 20 and 98.   I forked over my $1.59 (if memory serves correctly) for both, and climbed into the S-10 blazer and picked up my high school girlfriend.  She’d get in, and I’d hand a bottle to her for her lunch later in the day.  At first, I think Jennie was concerned with my mania for it and it met with an initial Jonestown resistance.   She eventually embraced it after she realized it wasn’t mind altering and it actually tasted pretty good.   We had it at lunch nearly every day.

In the Spring, the vending machines in the Cafeteria got Crystal Pepsi as part of the standard offering.  I don’t think I had spare change by the afternoon at any day during that last semester.  Pretty much with every meal, every snack, every hint of thirst went hand-in-hand with my equivalent of transparent nicotine.   My graduation was right around when Pepsi pulled the product from the shelves and with the sole exception of encountering a six-pack at Phar-Mor late in the summer, that was the end of my taste buds’ torrid affair with Crystal Pepsi.

The allure of it is really hard to articulate.  Reports that you may read on the web that the transparent cola tasted “just like Pepsi” are erroneous.   It tasted “like Pepsi” in the sense that Canadian football is “like American football.”  There are some distinct similarities, but it had its own effervescent qualities.  If your curiosity is insatiable and you have about $20 you too can find out what it tastes like!  Nothing quite exemplifies disposable income and early 90′s nostalgia than 15-year old soft drinks in stasis on E-bay.