The world is going more and more crazy, and this time, at least, it isn't my fault. I recently came across the following on the label on a bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red, a substance with little to negative nutritional value, yet one which aided a great many of my late-night coding sessions:
Contains: Carbonated Water, High-Fructose Corn Syrup AND/OR Sugar...And/or sugar? And/or sugar?! I'm sorry, but the phrase 'and/or' belongs in insurance contracts, not in ingredient lists. Then again, I suppose that there were early warning signals that Code Red was bad news. First of all, the name: it definitely violates my never-drink-anything-named after-emergency-situation-terminology policy,
which I plan on sticking to much more carefully in the future.1 Second, the color should've been a tip-off. That particular hue is generally reserved by nature for such crucial messages as "I'm a tropical flower! Pollinate me!" or "I'm a particularly good-looking parrot! Let's mate!" or "I'm heat vision coming from Superman's eyes. Die, villain!"
Since I am neither Lex Luthor, nor able to pollinate much of anything, nor particularly attracted to parrots (good-looking or otherwise), maybe this isn't the beverage for me.
You live, you learn, I guess.
"AND/OR?" Sheesh.
________1The policy mentioned above is similar to my don't-eat-anything-that-sounds-like-an-Aladdin-character policy. This, of course, is why I do not eat Babaganoush.
