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Sometimes the realities of this bizarre new world are revealed to a simple country geezer like me in mysterious ways. Take the other day.
On the road home from appointments at the VA clinic in a …
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Sometimes the realities of this bizarre new world are revealed to a simple country geezer like me in mysterious ways. Take the other day.
On the road home from appointments at the VA clinic in a nearby town, I popped into a McDonald’s for a hunger-mitigating if not particularly nutritious sausage egg McMuffin.
Then, momentarily out of character apparently, I inexplicably eschewed my standard cup of acrid, old guy, duck blind style black coffee in favor of a single-serving plastic bottle of cold, crisp Tropicana apple juice.
What came over me? In the absence of an official diagnosis, let’s blame it on SOGP (sudden onset geriatric perplexion).
Returning to the highway, on I motored, munching the sandwich washed down with sips of apple juice (which we all know is almost entirely plain water with a pinch or two of juice from real apples).
About those apples.
The wee bottle rested on my lap, near-at-hand so as not to risk life and limb — mine and others — fumbling for it at highway speed. I occasioned to glance down and noticed the ingredients side of the label staring back at me.
That’s when a fog of intracranial puzzlement descended.
Turns out (I pray you’re sitting down) the source of concentrated juice in that very bottle was off-the-charts global. Intuitively, I sensed you would resist believing what you are about to read in the next paragraph, thus the included photo.
The juice I was sipping at that very moment came from (deep breath): Brazil, Chile, China, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine and the U.S.
The mind dances in confusion pondering how such a global supply was injected into this one tiny bottle. Goodness, fuel mileage costs alone to add a couple squirts of juice into my 12-ounce jug at each of those wildly divergent stops over several continents must have been astronomical.
Of course, in further search of always-elusive profit, Tropicana must also calculate price of the juice itself, the chintzy bottle and screw-on cap, printing the label. It goes on and on.
Despite it all, I bought these few swigs of juice, watered down though they be, for only a couple bucks. I tell you, it defies logic, economics and common sense.
(Contact stevemosley42@gmail.com)
