{"id":1466,"date":"2007-10-23T07:34:15","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T11:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2007-10-23T07:34:15","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T11:34:15","slug":"on-drinking-a-coke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=1466","title":{"rendered":"On Drinking a Coke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The vending machine was out of root beer.  I didn&#8217;t feel like taking a ride on the elevator to the basement to buy an overpriced root beer from the cafe in the basement.<\/p>\n<p>I hit the button for Coke.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn&#8217;t remember the last time I&#8217;d had a Coke.  Funny, that.  The red aluminum can, so iconic in its calligraphic stylings, had passed completely from my life.<\/p>\n<p>I popped the top.  I heard the comfortable snap\/fiss of an aluminium can opening.<\/p>\n<p>I took a sip.<\/p>\n<p>A strange taste, that!  Why, it was&#8230; <i>bitter<\/i>.  I could not recall Coke ever having been <i>bitter<\/i> before.<\/p>\n<p>I took a swallow.<\/p>\n<p>Why!  This seemed lifeless.  Was Coke lifeless?<\/p>\n<p>Where was the excitement?  There was nothing here.  Not the sharpness of a root beer.  Not the goodness of a cream soda.  Have I outgrown the taste of the cola bean? I wondered.<\/p>\n<p>It was a natural question.<\/p>\n<p>I finished off the Coke.  It never excited me.  It was like meeting an old friend I&#8217;d realized I&#8217;d outgrown.  We&#8217;d had good times once, but we&#8217;d gone our separate ways.  I&#8217;d found a new crowd to hang with, and Coke wasn&#8217;t as daring or as edgy as he&#8217;d once been.<\/p>\n<p>Life goes on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The vending machine was out of root beer. I didn&#8217;t feel like taking a ride on the elevator to the basement to buy an overpriced root beer from the cafe in the basement. I hit the button for Coke. I couldn&#8217;t remember the last time I&#8217;d had a Coke. Funny, that. The red aluminum can,<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=1466\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;On Drinking a Coke&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[453,4093,454],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-coca-cola","tag-life","tag-root-beer","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}