Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Pop or Soda?

Every so often, I participate in random focus groups to discuss various products & services.  The pay is pretty good, usually $50-75 for 2hrs, and more importantly I actually enjoy doing them.  It’s pretty entertaining, sitting with a group of people that you don’t know and sharing thoughts and experiences.  The most recent study that I requested to participate in was specifically for drinkers of carbonated “soda” beverages. The thought of joining this focus group brought back many memories from my childhood, college years, and most recently my parenting years. I’ve been involved in the battle between pop & soda for quite some time, and even though I’m now living in the south, I’ll never stop campaigning for POP! This creates a bit of a dilemma when it comes to my kids, but we’ll get to that.

I can remember my first encounter with a “soda lover”; I was 14 years old and remember it like it was yesterday.  My Mom and I had taken a trip to Baltimore, MD to visit one of her friends that had recently moved there.  We’re from upstate NY and this was really one of my first times leaving the area for a big trip.  Anyways, the first day that we arrive, my Mom’s friend suggests that we go to the “Cheesecake Factory” (it later became my favorite restaurant).  This was our first time going to this restaurant so we were both excited, once we’re seated the waitress asks for our drink orders and I reply ever so innocently with “what kind of pop do you have?” This lady literally looks at me like I’m from another planet and says “I don’t think we have any kind of pop, can I get you something else.”  So now we’re sitting there dumbfounded, like what type of establishment doesn’t serve pop? I ask again, if she’s sure they don’t have any pop and once again the waitress just looks clueless.  My Mom’s friend then interjects (after having a good laugh), “he means soda, what kind of soda do you have?” The waitress then begins to spew a list of various beverages that seemed like it would last forever.  After she took our orders and left, my Mom’s friend explained that “down here” everyone calls it soda and if you go around asking for pop you’ll just get strange looks.  This was my first battle in the war against soda, and I lost.

Fast forward a few years to college at RIT, a “pop lover’s” haven.  Back on my home turf of upstate NY, the battle raged on, fierce drunken debates between myself and fellow upstate New Yorkers against our NYC friends.  I won’t bore you with details of these debates, but know that they would last upwards of an hour and sometimes spark mini debates: sneakers vs. tennis shoes, air ones vs. uptowns, etc.  At the end of the day, the pop supporters were always victorious because no matter what argument was brought against us, we could always travel to Wegmans and buy a can of Wpop for back up.

Back to present day and I’ve found myself in a conundrum, I’ve done the unthinkable and actually married a “soda lover”, and we now have pop/soda lover hybrid kids.  Do I wave the white flag and give up the fight that I’ve fought for so long, or do I continue on as a champion of POP?  I started the latter with Ty and the results, while funny, weren’t exactly what I had intended.  Anytime that Fefe would ask me if I’d like some soda, I’d tell her that I don’t drink soda, and to get me some pop (playing around of course).  Well Ty caught on and decided to fight the good fight against soda with me.  Only problem is, he actually thought that pop and soda were two different things.  If Fefe came to him holding a bottle of Pepsi and asked if he wanted some soda, he would respond with “no, give me some pop” (good boy, taught him well!).  So Fefe would pour the Pepsi and tell him “here’s your pop”, Ty would respond by saying that’s not pop, its soda and I’m not drinking it. LMAO, you can’t help but see the humor in that.  We eventually got him to understand that the difference was merely in the name and not the physical product, but eventually took a really long time.

So my question to you parents out there living with hybrid children, do you just go with the flow of the region that you’re living in? Or do you try to instill some of your history from the area that you grew up?  I’m still unsure if my kids go to school saying pop, while all the others are saying soda, will they be thought of as cool for bringing such an awesome word to the forefront, or will they be ostracized and looked at as aliens like I was so many years ago in that “Cheesecake Factory”

Toy Reviews are back, so be sure to head on over to Ty’s Tuesday Toy Review and see what he’s playing with today.