August 30, 2004
Things That Are Pretty Good:
Things That Are Pretty Good: Being the Second Installment in an Extremely Intermittent Series Discussing Some of the Pleasant Phenomena We Associate with Life as We Know It
Many moons ago (as our ancestors used to say), we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” undertook a new series of posts that aimed to remark on some of the finer things in life. We had decided to inaugurate this task because we had begun to notice that our humble musings—as humble as they were—tended to come across as a bit depressing.In fact, it seemed to us as if all we did each weekday was offer our readers various straw men (or straw womyn) for us to demolish. Granted, some of the targets of our opprobrium fully merited such scorn: Aryan racists and Charlie Rose, for example. But sometimes we came across as just plain nasty.
As such, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” offered our first post in our “Things That Are Pretty Good” series on—you guessed it—road rage. And, to be honest, writing in favor of something instead of ripping it to shreds felt very fine indeed.
But, to our chagrin, we could not choose another person, place, or thing that gave us such collective joy. And believe us, dear reader, we tried: Denny Terrio; red blood cells; corn muffins; Calvin Trillin. Nothing seemed to fit the bill.
Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” resumed our usual modus operandi: The excoriation of figurative sitting ducks.
Until now, dear reader. After (literally) months of reflection and soul-searching, we have discovered something that makes us as blithe as—if not blither than—road rage. What, you may be asking yourself, is this new paragon of goodness?
Well, we’re glad that you asked. The answer: Grape soda.
Now, we know what you are thinking, dear reader: Grape soda? That’s an awfully nugatory product to laud to the skies. Why, even Adam Sandler is superior to grape soda. To which we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” respond: That’s an interesting comparison, but we humbly and respectfully disagree. You chucklehead.
For grape soda is no trifling joy. Rather, it is the very elixir of life—the ambrosia of mortals.
Right now, in fact, we are sitting next to an entire case of Fanta grape soda, a product of Coca Cola that has the added benefit of being “artificially flavored.” So, dear reader, this beverage doesn’t offer its consumer anything as unsavory as grapes; rather, it presents such uplifting contents as “sodium benzoate.”
And its taste? Oh, simply heavenly. And its nutritional value? Well, that’s a bit harder to say. But it doesn’t have any fat, which may be good, if you haven’t fallen for the Atkins diet (no pun intended).
So, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” shall be so bold as to declare grape soda one of life’s true pleasures. And it doesn’t have any caffeine, which means you won’t be up all night thinking about it.
