I was feeling a wee bit hung over after a party the night prior (and the sad part is, I had all of about 3.5 drinks over the course of 4 hours… I’m getting older!) and decided I needed some hydration and electrolytes. I popped into Fresh & Co, simply because it was the first place I passed, with the intention of getting some coconut water. Much to my dismay, they had no coconut water. But they had some lovely looking juices lined up, so I picked up a flavor that looked tasty (Pineapple, Apple, Mint), and went to the register to pay.
She said the price, which I paid zero attention to, and I pulled out a crisp (probably not so crisp) $10 bill and handed it over. She handed me back 3 quarters and I exited the store.
Then I looked down.
3 quarters?
I scratched my head.
I walked back in.
There was a line at the register now so I approached the juice shelf.
For a few hopeful moments, I assumed she must have charged me for 2. (Oh how naive I was!)
And much to my shock… this juice was, in fact, $8.50 before tax.
Why I didn’t throw the juice into the air and scream “ROBBERY!” I will never understand, but I sheepishly walked out of that store with my luxury juice in hand and stared down on it in dismay.
This had better be some DAMN good juice. Was it made out of gold? Was it going to instill me with super powers beyond my wildest dreams?
Only time would tell.
I was even more dismayed to see that it is ONLY 82% juice! For $9.25, this should be 100% dammit.
But I took a sip.
And it was just fine… If it were $3 juice. Even better if it were $2 juice! But for $9.25? Hell to the no.
And there was no gold.
And no super powers to be had.
Besides the super power of feeling like I am what is wrong with this country. More than $9 for JUICE?!
As I contemplated how I was solely responsible for perpetuating that this robbery was somehow okay, I decided to lift my juice bottle to its austere place in society by photographing it in front of the Empire State Building.
I briefly toyed with the idea of keeping this bottle with me and taking photos with it at major tourist attractions in NYC, figuring if it couldn’t give me super powers at least it could provide me with a little bit of company and amusements as I strolled the streets of my fair city. But after taking a few extra moments to get this picture where you could actually read the label while also seeing the building behind it, and then lowering it to realize that people were staring at me JUST like I stare at the silly tourists who take silly pictures as I pass by them on my way to work every day, I opted to toss it into the next trash can.
And I hummed “Taps” in my head as if a (very expensive) living creature had passed away.
