Subliminal message = DIET PEPSI

Well, nevermind all that business, let me talk about something more important and that would be beer drinking. Which I will be doing this evening. Yes, it's another Mystics game which I will be attending (and maybe watching? Candace Dupree is my Sky girlfriend so gotta holla! -- btw, I am now intentionally trying to find ways to include that '04 throwback holla! in my posts/life for no other reason than that is how I have come to roll). Point being: I shall be going into DC again tonight to hang with the one person I know in this whole crazy mixed up world and who will drink beer with me while watching womens' hoops.

Oh, I threatened to write this and dang it, I'm just going to. After grocery shopping last night, I feel I must speak out. File this under things you probably don't give a shit about, but maybe it strikes a chord with one or two of you and makes you want to take action and rise up/fight the power!

Dear Softdrink Packaging/Marketing Corporate Peeps (and by Softdrink I mean Diet Pepsi),

I have recently discovered that you have pulled a fast one on this consumer with your sly packaging/re-pricing campaign. Back in my day, you used to be able to find 24-pack cases of say, Diet Pepsi, for the price of approximately $5.50 or so. In some cases, I found it on sale for $4.88. Ah, those were the days when my vice was easily and cheaply had. Now, I dare anyone to go into their local groceria and find anything but a 12 pack of say, Diet Pepsi, for anything LESS than $5.00. That, my friends, is not only a clever packaging/pricing scheme, but also Hi-fucking-way Robbery. What they have done is simply made 24 packs no longer available and jacked up the price of a 12 pack to that of a case and in the process, DOUBLED their corporate profits off the backs of caffeine addicts such as myself. Has anyone else noticed this at all? I am not crazy. This was total bait and switch.

I will offer an example for those who are skeptical and/or don't have a pop habit. Let us say you like Twix candy bars. They have been and continue to be sold in packages containing two tasty wafer/carmel/chocolate treats. Let's say the price for that package is $.75 (neverminding the fact that back in the day, you could get a candy bar for a quarter, I shall not revert back to curmudgeon-speak about old tymey prices but I will ask: Whatever happened to the Marathon Bar, now that was a candy bar, my friend, let me tell you). Ok, so you are going to the store to get your Twix fix (woo), and lo and behold, they have repackaged it everywhere. You can no longer find a pack that contains two Twix inside. Now you must pay 75 cents for just ONE wafery/carmel goodness. (setting aside for the moment, those hippy folks who would simply say 'dude, just stop buying corporate american consumer items and live off your harvest of carrots and/or green beans' - I know and love those hippy folks, but we are talking about a drug habit here, there is no time to live off the land when caffeine is needed. Plus, how can I possibly have time to garden when I am weaving my hemp rope flipflops to sell at the next Dave Matthews Band concert).

Would this not possibly induce ire in you? Would you not shake your fist to the sky and ask why you are paying the same price for 1/2 less? In the meantime, Pepsi peeps are in their gold built offices with diamond tiaras rubbing their hands back and forth while having sex on their corporate couches on top of every extra five dollar bill I have given them to receive half of what they once gave to me. I tell you, this is what it has come to, writing rants in hopes of making this world a better place for fellow Diet Pepsi drinkers. I am thinking of the children.

If I can raise the consciousness of but one consumer of Diet Pepsi and/or their corporate representatives, then my work here is done. And if a truck of Diet Pepsi mysteriously showed up in front of my house like tomorrow or something, Sunday would be fine too, then it will have been worth it.

And with that, I bid you a nippy fucky goodday!