Coca-Cola Slurpee

Coca-Cola Slurpee from the 7-11

The Double Gulp cup.
Just the thing to impress they ladies.

This is how much Slurpee I consume
between the 7-11 and home.
I'll need to start taking two cups.

The only fault of the Double Gulp sized cup.

It's like that shaft Luke Skywalker fell down
at the end of the Star Wars movie.

"Why? Why do you keep annoying me with these stupid soda photos?
There's not even a joke here!" shouts Buck the Cat.

Oh, Coke Slurpee, we've had a long and tumultuous relationship. I loved you, you know. Then you betrayed me.

It was sometime in the mid-90s. Probably 1995 or 96. I know we were still on speaking terms in 1994, during that tough Kansas City winter when I made it a point to bring a Slurpee to my college classes any day it was below twenty degrees. That was a lot of Slurpees, all of them delicious.

My Slurpee intake dropped after I moved out of the swiss-cheese illegal warehouse in which I was living and into a proper apartment nearer my school. A 7-11 was no longer convenient to my daily travels. It may have been months before I realized The Change had taken place.

One day I bought a Slurpee and it tasted terrible. Like a Coca-Cola scented candle, like a Sweettart version of "cola". The next Slurpee and the next were identical, apparently a recipe change had taken place. Panicky letters were written to 7-11 HQ, no response. No response? Yep, not even a form letter thanking me for buying at 7-11. My heart was broken.

I left Kansas City and wound up in NYC. 7-11s were rare here in the late 90s, maybe nonexistent. I was still drinking Slurpees, rarely, on my trips to the Midwest. Each was a disappointment, the Change was still holding strong.

During these sad times, a friend of mine showed me a trick of cutting the Slurpee with regular fountain Coke to get the flavor closer to something palatable. It was such an obvious trick that I claimed to have always known about it. It helped, but there was still a cloying hint of Bed Bath and Beyond about the drink. My soul was dark and cloudy, I could not shake a deep seated feeling of betrayal.

One day, though, a second Change. Perhaps a reversion. A return to normalcy, maybe something new and better. The old Slurpee taste is lost to history, but this new taste, this third taste was better than ever. It tasted like Coke again, but BETTER than Coke. It was sweeter than Coke, it didn't taste burned and foul. Even the melted Slurpee sloshing in the bottom of my cup/bucket was delicious!

My lost love had returned with the soft drink equivalent of a breast enlargement.

Back on the road with the Coke Slurpee, there are some things to know:

1. You still cut it with straight fountain Coke. Fill the Slurpee up half-way, add about a seconds worth of Coke from the nearby soda fountain, and then top it off with more Slurpee. Don't try to add the fountain Coke with the Slurpee dome lid on, that's a recipe for heartbreak - the nozzle of the dispenser won't fit into the opening. Don't add the fountain Coke first, as the liquid makes its way down to the bottom anyway, plus its fun to add the Coke to the Slurpee mass and watch it bubble back up out of the mess like a volcano.
2. You can mix other Slurpee flavors in with your Coke Slurpee. I used to do cherry. Go crazy. I'm not sure if the other flavors still taste like crap, though, so be careful.
3. It's obvious, but make sure you top off the Slurpee with the dome lid on. I've watched people fail to do this. Ignorant, ignorant people.
4. Nowadays you can keep your Slurpee cup and get a discounted refill. This helps ease my conscience, as I make it a point not to buy plastic soda cups. Now I buy one and get to use it all I want. Actually two, one for home and one for the studio. Be careful carrying the empty cups in a bag, they can break.
5. This is important. Slurpees settle. Fill the thing up and then spend a few minutes wandering around the store. Get some nachos, watch the hot dogs and meat things roll on the rollers, admire the pretty lottery tickets. When you return your Slurpee will be several inches lower in the cup, more if you added fountain soda. We cannot let 7-11 gyp us out of good Slurpee so top off and head for the check-out.
6. I think that in all of New York I am the only person taking advantage of the refill offer. If your getting a refill expect suspicious glances. Be strong. Also be ready to get hassled. I use the 64 oz soft drink cup for Slurpees, this is apparently against 7-11 policy. A loosely enforced policy, though. If they didn't want Slurpees going into a Double Big Gulp cup, why do the dome lids fit? I sometimes get scolded over using the big cup, and threatened about having to pay more. The secret, of course, is that I don't care about paying an extra twenty-five cents if it saves me from wasting a new plastic cup.

So do it. Go buy a Slurpee.

Slurpee trivia: In Australia, the 7-11s I saw there had generic "cola" Slurpees with a small "c". No Coca-Cola Slurpees there. They tasted great, though.

This is a second Slurpee my wife brought me
because I am miserable with dental surgery.
It was practically prescribed by a doctor.