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No, Pepsi Is Not 'Okay.' Pepsi Is NEVER 'Okay.'

Apparently Pepsi is in trouble because it tried to be "woke" and was in fact "broke." Or something, I dunno, insert some dumb millennial slang above. Point is, everyone's mad at Pepsi.

This makes me happy.

It makes me happy, in the general sense, because this is what #brands deserve to have happen to them when they try to enter the social-political fray. Let this be a lesson to all of you gibbering morons in advertising departments: stop trying to tell us you're making a difference in the world and selling us on your social justice street cred and hyping up how aware you are of whatever idiots on Twitter are whinging about on any given day. Just make your product better.

Which brings me to the second, more specific, reason I'm glad Pepsi is taking it on the chin: because Pepsi is garbage water masquerading as a refreshing carbonated beverage.

There's nothing worse than going to a restaurant, being asked what you'd like to drink, replying "Diet Coke," and hearing, in response, "Is Pepsi okay?"

No.

No it is not.

Pepsi is NOT okay, miss.

Pepsi is NEVER okay.

I guess it's better than just being surprised by a Diet Pepsi after ordering a Diet Coke; the waitresses who try to sneak that by you are literal monsters, Creation's true villains. You just imagine they have a whole freezer full of human heads at home. But that question still rankles, coming with it so many assumptions: that you, the consumer, consider these two vastly different goods to be interchangeable; that the store's decision to go with an inferior soda should be simply accepted; that one should just slurp up the slop dispensed from your almost-certainly-mold-encrusted soda lines.

You sicken me, Pepsi-dispensing restaurants.

I sometimes feel bad when I hear the question because I know my face, instinctively, has adopted a look of horrified disgust. Not a sneer, exactly, but an uncontrollable wave of revulsion wrinkling my features from lips to nose to brow—eyes a-squint and nostrils flared. I feel bad because it's not really the fault of the waitress; she just works here. It's the owner of the joint I despise, the silly sack of crap who thinks that it's okay to offer an inferior beverage to his customers.

Occasionally I wonder: are there people who habitually order Pepsi only to be asked "Is Coke okay?" Who hurt them? Why have they made such poor life choices? Do you think that they eventually give up and accept the fact that most places don't carry Pepsi because Pepsi is truly one of God's great mistakes?

Anyway, I'm glad Pepsi is taking it on the chin. Just remember: it's bad and restaurants that serve it are bad.

Pepsi: It's never okay.