DAY THREE of the Summer of Val's Discontent

DAY THREE

Still no Diet Coke in sight at the gas station chicken store!

I ask you...is THIS any way to run a business? Not only has Val forsaken that establishment her daily $1.69 for a 44 oz Diet Coke...she has taken her scratch-off business elsewhere! They're gonna need to sell a lot of chicken to make up for those losses. Contrary to The Pony's theory, the gas station chicken store did NOT run out of Diet Coke because Val was in there filling up a 44 oz vat of it daily since her retirement. Okay. Since the evening BEFORE her retirement. You'd celebrate too, if all you had was 4 hours of not-work left, FOREVER.

Seriously. How can these people not fix their Diet Coke dispenser? Let the record show that the paper sign taped over the spigot said OUT. Not BROKEN. I can only assume the store has gone without Diet Coke because the owner's wife is out of town. If SHE was in the building, she would have seen that the land flowed with Diet Coke and chicken. She is not one to be trifled with. Everybody is shaking in his shoes when she's on the prowl. The owner himself is a laid-back kind of guy. He reminds me of Ned Flanders. His view would be that there are still 17 other kinds of soda for folks to select. He's probably not a Diet Coke drinker.

It would behoove those folks to remedy the Diet Coke situation forthwith! Because since the initial dalliance with Diet Pepsi, Val has gone on the prowl for another supplier. And found one, just up the road. Uh huh. The former Voice of the Village, now a geometric letter, also has fountain Diet Coke! And do you know what it costs there? Are you ready for this? Only 79 cents! That makes it 83 cents with tax! Yep. Any size fountain drink is 79 cents there. What a draw to bring in customers this summer!

Of course, their Diet Coke is not as good. But it's Diet Coke, not Diet Pepsi. That's sayin' something.

Why no diet coke after THREE DAYS, you chicken people? If that beverage was merely OUT, solving the problem does not take a rocket scientist.

I don't like to brag about my rich tapestry of life experiences, but let the record show that one of Val's work threads was woven through a job as a clerk at a Casey's General Store. Which is not to say that I screened delivery drivers for unmarked pharmacies operating out of storefronts in long-closed plazas. Yep. Val is a convenience store insider. She knows the ice in those soda fountains is not made inside them, like crescent cubes in a Frig II, if you will. Nope. That ice comes from bags taken from inventory and sliced open and dumped in the top by a clerk standing on a chair. You always fill the ice before leaving your shift to the next clerk. That's common courtesy.

Anyhoo...when the soda runs out, all you have to do is hook up the hoses under the counter to connect a canister of CO2, and a box containing a bag of soda syrup. It takes five minutes. Unless there is some newfangled technotronic way of dispensing fountain soda. And judging by the look of the gas station chicken store...I'd say they are not on the cutting edge.

I want my Diet Coke! And so do all the other Diet Cokeheads! Without it, our life has no purpose. We will lay around the landscape like Salvador Dali clocks.

Like a Vidalia onion must come from only 20 counties in Georgia, and Scotch must come from Scotland...the blend of other Diet Coke at other convenience stores is just not the same.