I bicycle to the nearer store. Turns out that there is no "Stop One" deli at 72nd and 5th Ave. There's a Russian pharmacy with a name which sounds similar when spoken out loud, but they don't have soft drinks for sale. Or so they claim. If I was a real investigator, I would break into their store room at night, just to be certain. But I'm not.
However, the trip was not without adventure. I picked up a Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, something I'd never actually seen but had only imagined in my most fantastic dreams (not pictured). I also picked up a Mexican Coke with real sugar, a rarity nowadays.
Then disaster. I quote from my "Facebook" page:
And the follow up...Tim used a his bike spokes to open a bottle of Mexican Coke. While riding. On accident. I could've died.
I didn't get to enjoy the Coke. It was in a cloth bag, which swung down from my shoulder and caught in the spokes. It was spun with the rotation and jammed up into the front brake, which made my front wheel seize up. As it caught, the cap popped off and a jet of soda shot out of the bag and into the air. Meanwhile, the back tire of the bike lifted high up into the air and my butt left the seat. My legs flailed straight out in a successful effort to keep my balance, which was quite remarkable in itself.
At the peak of my arc, with soda spraying in the air and myself balanced on the handlebars and my butt higher than my head, I looked over at a passing mini-van full of Middle-Eastern men. Our eyes met, theirs were full of horror and sympathy, I suspect mine were already shot through with embarassment.
The caffeine-free Pepsi survived intact.
Yeah, you fucks. Laugh all you like.
Another dream. I'm in a poorly drawn sloop and see a gigantic bottle of Pepsi Natural bobbing on the waves. I heft a harpoon, put my knee in the clumsy cleat, "dart the harp", and then all goes black. I have a vague memory of an ominous voice saying "1d6 investigators per round", but I don't remember what happens next. I think the dream symbolizes that Pepsi Natural is like an ice berg, and 90% of the deliciousness is concealed under the water.
Here's the drawing I made:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjEBxZYNbJr2nMars-uYHTacKuhtPxiDAOF-35HnM0YUezrY49jdvGWjcC8ES31Cac419luPgY8-F6T4Ez-9jtB0FUaFpyDVrSSwzH5vXtO3fA2M7nOq5v1whFT4-CBq2rEc8M3TD3Oic/s400/PepsiNaturalDrawingFour.jpg)
On Knickerbocker, across from Maria Hernandez park, there's a market with really good, cheap avocados and sugared Cokes in glass (does it come in plastic?). I enjoyed mine. If you can't make it out, I'll pick one up for you, or, if they are tapped out from my last visit, a different carbonic delight.
ReplyDeleteIf you cleaned them out of sugared Coke, I bet the replacements will be glass bottles of HFCS Coke. It seems like all the Mexican Coke distributors in NYC are selling corn syrup Coke nowadays. I went back and cleaned out the place I visited in the above blog, they replaced with HFCS.
ReplyDeleteI keep having to go further afield.
And let me say there are few things more embarrassing than having art friends catch me making Call of Cthulhu RPG jokes in public.