I believe it was General Jack D. Ripper who said, “A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core commie works.” It soon became apparent to me that I must watch what fluids I put into my body.
It was, therefore, clear that I must choose wisely when introducing myself to the vending machine, the one device deciding which liquids I would ingest. The vending machine had your run-of-the-mill water and seltzer, but then I noticed a few out-of-the-ordinary containers with designs more reminiscent of the Bush era than whatever the hell era we live in now.
I thought to myself, “What a silly little gag it would be to consume some dubious fluids on a hot Saturday.” I looked at the various bottles, each with its own distinct design and decided it would only be fair to judge two of the drinks. Following such a decision, I decided on fruit punch and their pineapple soda. Choosing these two was the obvious choice to quote Full Metal Jacket: “the duality of man” was present between the deep red fruit punch and the glowing neon yellow. With these two mysterious beverages, I was risking it all. I could possibly become the victim of an international communist conspiracy. However, after tasting the substance simply labeled as “fruit punch,” I came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than a generic fruit drink.
When I inspected the bottle, the mysterious outline of abstract fruits led me to believe that this fruit punch was going to revolutionize what it means to be considered “fruit punch flavored,” similar to the avant-garde taste of the Jarritos fruit punch. But alas, if you had given me a blindfold and told me I was drinking Kool-Aid, I wouldn’t question it, considering the drink is nothing more than a generic opaque red drink containing red dye #40, a mysterious substance that makes food redder than any flag flown at the Paris Commune and might be linked to migraines. (Heavy emphasis on the “might,” so don’t sue me red dye industrial complex!)
After consuming such a beverage, one might say that it would not be wise to have another. But upon purchasing the so-called “pineapple soda,” even the Soviet ambassador called it “an astonishingly good idea.”
And indeed an astonishingly good idea it was, as although we have to keep up with the arms race and the space race, and the peace race, one cannot forget that we must not forget the important beverage race. Which company and nation is going to create the best beverage? In order to find the answer I knew I had to go back in for another sampling of their drinks.
However, this time I went with an actual carbonated soda, unlike the fruit punch I had that was flatter than the topography of the American South. Upon the pineapple soda reaching my tastebuds, I was instantly reminded of the last meal Richard Nixon had in the White House: a plate of cottage cheese topped with canned pineapple. Why? Because this soda was like eating the remnant juices of canned pineapple rings mixed with soda water.
The agony I felt consuming a drink like this was beyond excruciating. I could’ve used the money to purchase an actual drink that would’ve satisfied my tastebuds, like Fanta or even Crush, the clear brand these “Push” people are trying to copy by naming their beverage after another synonymous verb, clearly these people are not soda artisans but just simple thesaurus readers.
Overall this soda is borderline garbage, and for the ultimate Scarlet beverage review score, I will have to give this line of fine substances a 4.5/10.
