Cola Wars
“Can’t you see why Pepsi is better? It’s got a richer flavor.”
“Really, man? You actually believe that? You must have a screw loose.”
Larry liked Pepsi. Arnold drank Coca-Cola. Their arguments, with slight variation, always started in some way like this. Though they both had originated from the same nurturing womb, they were always inevitably ensnared in some vitriolic dispute over which of the two had the superior taste in soft drink. When one hosted an event, the other simply would not show up. When one was in trouble, the other was absent, and if they got enough on each other’s nerves about their preferences, things could get ugly.
“I’m not going there to drink his disgusting cola,” one of the two would often say to their wives. It was only after the women in their lives had begged and pleaded with them to make brief amends in the hopes of projecting some semblance of family functionality to their adult children.
Sibling disputes were not unheard of, but these two took it to extremes. No one was ever quite sure how it got this bad, but it had been simmering for decades.
“Sell-out, we’re supposed to be part of the Pepsi generation!” Larry would yell. And this was not untrue. Born in ‘62, the two brothers came of age in a time when your identity was inexorably defined by the products they chose from the grocery aisle. It was more than just a drink. It was a lifestyle. If you chose Pepsi, you were someone who believed in being out of the ordinary and free-spirited. If you drank Coca-Cola, you had respect for tradition and nostalgia while still knowing how to have fun during the weekends.
Larry often had the most impassioned speeches. “You know, when put on a blind taste test, 3 out of 5 consumers said they preferred the taste of Pepsi over Coke.”
“Yeah, well, Coca-Cola is the preferred drink of polar bears and Santa Claus.”
“I hate polar bears and Santa isn’t real.”
“You must hate America, too, don’t you?”
The feud never seemed to quell; in fact, it only got worse with time.
One time, when Arnold’s daughter was still in the fifth grade, he saw a poster of Britney Spears hanging on her bedroom wall. Even though she was promoting a love of literature while posing with a Harry Potter book, he tore it down the instant he saw it, despite the tears it brought to his daughter’s eyes.
“Spears is a spokesperson for Pepsi. That makes her the enemy, and I will not allow this heresy in my house.”
Arnold was especially ruthless. One day, in particular, he decided to put this Pepsi taste test to the test. He gave Larry what apparently was a glass of Pepsi and told him to drink it. Larry did not seem to notice that it was Coke. It helped that it was not just Coke, but a little rum was also mixed in. You could never combine rum with the other drink. It was unheard of.
When Larry learned of the poison that was put in his body without his knowledge, he decided to up the ante of their warfare. When Arnold wasn’t looking, he put two liters of Pepsi in the gas tank of his brand-new car. When the motor inevitably stopped functioning, his insurance provider had no sympathy or coverage to provide, but Arnold knew exactly who to direct his ire at.
“You silly little goose, you thought you could get away with that stunt you pulled, didn’t you?”
“What? I thought your car could use a little nitro. Pepsi Nitro, that is.”
And it was there that these two men, who were close to retirement age, got into a brutal wrestling match, pulling at each other’s hair. It took their adult children to come and split them apart.
It was then that it was decided something had to be done. The wives of the two brothers decided to call a family therapist to sit down with them both and figure things out.
“I sense a lack of communication between you both,” the therapist began. “A lot of repressed trauma here. Tell me, what was your relationship like with your father?”
“He was a no good son-of-a-bitch,” Larry replied.
“And he drank RC Cola like a fish,” Arnold added.
“Maybe that’s what led to his decline in health all those years later.”
“He should’ve drunk Coke. In Latin American countries, a little coke with lime is a common remedy for all sorts of illness.”
Larry was about to say something else, but the therapist instantly recognized what he had to do. The task came down to him, this mental health professional. It would be he who had to unite these two angry brothers, much like Kylie Jenner did when she united protesters and the police.
“You know,” the therapist began, “this is exactly what the American capitalist system expects of you. It wants you to arbitrarily pick between two identical consumer products and fight over silly, nonsensical things rather than recognizing that the system itself is actively making you both needlessly antagonistic and tribalistic about the silliest things. These companies would rather pit you two against each other than realize you are stronger as a unified family.”
The brothers were flummoxed. Up to that point, the therapist had made no mention that he was tainted by leftist ideology.
“Albert, did this nerd just say Coke and Pepsi are nearly identical?”
“Yes, Larry, I believe he did. Let’s beat him up.”
And so the two brothers beat up this nerd, and it was the most bonding the two had had as siblings in a very long time.