MMeM, Vol. 11 Issue 3 – How many is that for you?

So many good intentions go awry in the end. Maybe it’s phrases like, “The ends justify the means…” or something along those lines. Certainly, current issues and crises cause people and society in general to put forth more effort and problem-solving-think-tank-doers to attempt positive change and end up with #FAIL.

Sadly today we seem to prove again and again that we derail ourselves in the honestly good intentioned efforts and end up stuck in a muddy ditch. Take obesity today. Who doesn’t want to get their arms around that huge problem today? Yes, pun definitely intended there.

So, naturally foods, candies, portion sizes, even chocolates have been expectedly targeted as offending enablers of Big & Tall Retail Clothing store development firms. One of the targets in the fight against or the “War” on obesity has been SuGaR. And lately, SUGARY drinks, specifically, SODA.

But wait a second, let’s tap the brakes here. Now there are laws, LAWS, being passed and enforced on the sizes of cups of carbonated fountain drinks that can be sold in convenience stores.

I see how you got to this point, but isn’t this an incredibly slippery and nearly vertical slope you have just ventured out onto while wearing flip-flops? Obviously, the next law to amend to that law is going to be a refill limit law or something that monitors how soon you can re-enter a store to re-fill the legal sized container of a carbonated fountain soda. Who’s going to track that? How?

But then, what about this? “Sip Stealing” is legal in all 50 states. Like you haven’t done that. You’re at the fountain soda station and you drink some before assembling the flimsy crappy plastic lid onto the equally crappy plastic or new supposedly recyclable styrofoam cup while unsheathing the paper protected straw. “I thought I accidentally filled it too high.” or “I wasn’t sure the lid would fit on without causing a spill first, but then I drank too much and had to put more in again before putting the lid on for good to make sure I was getting what I was paying for or so it doesn’t look like I was doing what I was which was consuming something before I paid for it to the cashier.”

I don’t know man, I see no way to stop this flood of loopholes and leaky dams of fountain soda and sugary drink dispensers other than to ban them all together. Is that what we want or what we have all really come to? Ugh.