T-t-talking about my Pepsi generation

I held a can of Pepsi the other day and was staring at it for quite a while, because that's the sort of thing I do. I've drank a lot of Pepsis in my time... for many years, it was my caffeine fix of choice, until the sugar/chemicals/calories etc. finally led me to scale back considerably. Down here in New Zealand, they're quite hard to find, so when I bought a case of Pepsi the other week it was a special treat for myself, the most Pepsi (Pepsis? Pepsum?) I've had in years.

I discovered Pepsi as a kid and it's always remained my carbonated beverage of choice (I appreciate the occasional Fanta/orange soda, and went through a Mountain Dew Code Red phase for a spell). I'd suck them down like water for years and it probably explains my dental distress over time. At one point during a summer camp in the late 1980s I had well over a dozen Pepsis during one long, very sleepless day/night. ... You think you're invincible for the longest time and don't ever imagine something sold in a supermarket might not be "good" for you, I guess.

But like I said, I've scaled back. I eventually became addicted instead to the utterly horrible coffee pretty much all newspaper kitchens specialize in. Since I drink my coffee black, there's less calories/sugar than soda to deal with. I go months now between Pepsis.

The whole Coke Vs. Pepsi thing? Well, I can tolerate Coke in a pinch, but I've always found it more bitter, less crisp. I always sympathize with the underdog, so maybe that's why I've gone with Pepsi. It's been interesting to watch how perpetually No. 2 Pepsi can't leave its can and logo design alone. While Coke goes with what has worked for decades, Pepsi has changed what feels like constantly.

I remain an aluminum purist when it comes to soda. I will and have drank it out of plastic bottles, but my battered palate tells me there is indeed a difference in the taste of a Pepsi in a bottle and one in a can. There's something comforting about the icy blue metal chilled exterior, about putting your mouth gingerly on the edge of the shiny cylinder. The experience of chugging one of those always-too-large-a-serving plasticky bottles is never the same.

I'm relatively aware now of trying to have a good (or at least non-horrible) diet, so Pepsis are rare now. But still, to pop open that can with the familiar pffsssshht and grip that chilled object, to do the motions I've done hundreds of times before -- well, some things in life are worth indulging in sometimes.