Current mood:

shocked

Pop Is The Antichrist

Let's get something out of the way: I am an abusive boyfriend.

Not physically (though I've had to wrestle a few suicidally hysterical women into submission a couple of times), and only verbally in a very narrow sense.

You wanna tell me I'm a fuckwipe? Fine. Want to inform me that my politics are shit? Fine. That I am a waste of human flesh? No prob.

But there is absolutely one behavior that I will not put up with from any woman who dates me, or any of those who would call themselves my friends:

It's fucking soda, goddammit.

Gini came from Oregon, and she says the dreaded "P"-word, and I will admit that I badgered her about it unmercifully. Every time she said, "I'll have a pop," I would immediately explode in fury:

"A what?" I'd roar.

"A..."

And she'd suddenly cringe, realizing her mistake.

"It's a soda!" I'd shriek, pounding on the table; the waitress generally jumped back at this point. "A goddamn soda! There is no such thing as a pop!"

Proving that Pavlov was not only correct, but downright handy in many situations, Gini eventually learned never to say the "P" word around me.

It is a hallmark of my obsession with this nonsensical word that Bari, my previous girlfriend, said "soda" instead of "pop" - and Bari worked in a coffee shop in Michigan, where she heard more people saying "pop?" than Wilt Chamberlain.

I hate pop.

And now I know why.

A recent survey shows the distribution of people who grew up in a given area saying "pop," "soda," "coke," or the mysterious "other." We can do some interesting breakdowns.

Now, I've always known that "pop" was a Midwestern phenomenon, which sort of goes against it right there. After all, we have the West Coast, which brings us all sorts of movies, leftist treatises, and Disneyland; on the East Coast, we have neurotic writers, the finest colleges anywhere, and the heart of American politics. As a Yankee, it chokes me to admit it, but I can accept that the South produces fine writing on its own and some exceptionally beautiful corporate culture, as corporate culture goes.

But what does the Midwest have to offer? I mean, culturally?

I can see the headlines now: "Midwest offers State Fairs, Steel Mills, and rampant homophobia to grateful nation."

So on the one hand, we have the East Coast, as represented by "soda," which has given America the Constitution, the Stock Exchange, Woody Allen films, and the birthplace of modern jazz and hip-hop music; on the other hand, we have butter sculptures of Elvis.

That's a stroke against.

But let's break it down further and get past my racism; even assuming that my anti-borderal sentiments aren't entirely valid - and hey, who knows? Maybe Corn Dogs are equal in achievement to Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural masterpieces - then can we find a reason why I'm so irrational about this?

I believe we can.

Let's look at Ohio's soda vs. pop demographic:

5044 "pop" (agh) - 89.4%
599 "soda" - 10.6%

And compare to other major midwestern states:

Michigan:
953 "pop" - 72.3%
365 "soda" - 27.6%

Iowa:
1886 "pop" - 87.3%
273 "soda" - 12.7%

Illinois:
4790 "pop" - 72.5%
1820 "soda" - 27.5%

Okay.

Now wanna know why I'm such a soda fascist?

Connecticut:

1301 "soda" - 98.6%
18 "pop" - 1.4%

In other words, out of 1300 people, only eighteen misguided souls would admit to saying "pop." There may be people in Connecticut who say "pop," but I imagine they're hiding in the basement along with Anne Frank.

But what about other states I lived in?

Massachusetts: 98.3% in favor of soda.
Delaware: 98.3% in favor of soda.
Maine: 98.2% in favor of soda.

By these statistics, it's pretty safe to say that nobody I knew asked for soda, if only because the 1.3% of the people who said "pop" were evidently in the State Penitentiary or the mental institutions where they belong.