Coca Cola Sayings Quotes

Livin' is like pourin' water out of a tumbler into a dang Coca-Cola bottle. If'n you skeered you can't do it, you cain't. If'n you say to yourself, "By dang, I can do it!" then, by dang, you won't slosh a drop.

Go with polar bears, I say to myself. Polar bears at the North Pole. Baby polar bears scooting along after their mothers in the snow. Polar bears drinking Coca-Cola.

No matter what a person does to cover up and conceal themselves, when we write and lose control, I can spot a person from Alabama, Florida, South Carolina a mile away even if they make no exact reference to location. Their words are lush like the land they come from, filled with nine aunties, people named Bubba. There is something extravagant and wild about what they have to say — snakes on the roof of a car, swamps, a delta, sweat, the smell of sea, buzz of an air conditioner, Coca-Cola — something fertile, with a hidden danger or shame, thick like the humidity, unspoken yet ever-present. Often when a southerner reads, the members of the class look at each other, and you can hear them thinking, gee, I can't write like that. The power and force of the land is heard in the piece. These southerners know the names of what shrubs hang over what creek, what dogwood flowers bloom what color, what kind of soil is under their feet. I tease the class, "Pay no mind. It's the southern writing gene. The rest of us have to toil away.

If the p/e of Coca-Cola is 15, you’d expect the company to be growing at about 15 percent a year, etc. But if the p/e ratio is less than the growth rate, you may have found yourself a bargain. A company, say, with a growth rate of 12 percent a year (also known as a “12-percent grower”) and a p/e ratio of 6 is a very attractive prospect.

You cook the native foods to perfection, Robert Childan thought. What they say is true: your powers of imitation are immense. Apple pie, Coca-Cola, stroll after the movie, Glenn Miller...you could paste together out of tin and rice paper a completely artificial America. Rice-paper Mom in the kitchen, rice-paper Dad reading the newspaper. Rice-paper put at his feet. Everything.

Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever - "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -" Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? "For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - " "Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - " "Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - " "Not The Orgasm Death - " "Not the ovens - " Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly. "Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time." Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal - "Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates - Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn? What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open.

People keep saying someone should fix the system, the system is corrupt. What they don’t get is; they are the system. It’s just like how people hate McDonald’s and Coca Cola. People say they are evil corporations, terrorists and ruining the health of the future but then, how are these brands live and running all over the world, making billions of dollars of profit every day? People still buy it, that’s how. The majority of the world is people who know something is bad for them but keep consuming it. If it’s so bad for you, why buy it? If the system is so bad, why do they vote for it? It’s the people who need to change not the leaders.

Corey was hanging out down by the port one afternoon with Karl and Jacques when a bus-load of american tourists drove by, and in a moment of clarity Corey suddenly perceived Karl in the light of reality rather than through the kaleidoscope of fashion: the tourists were staring open-mouthed through the bus windows, ice creams held in mid-air, gawping at the apparition that was Karl. Jacques was driving the mobylette and Karl sat behind riding side-saddle dressed in hot pants, long strands of pearls and dark glasses; he was wielding a raw frankfurter straight from the packet in one hand and a bottle of coca-cola in the other. I remember thinking "I am with this total freak," says Corey.

I told her stories. They were only a sentence long, each one of them. That’s all I knew how to find. So I told her broken stories. The little pieces of broken stories I could find. I told her what I could. I told her that the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met. I told her that the Emperor Nero, from Rome, had a giant sea built where he could keep sea monsters and have naval battles staged for him. I told her that there had been rioting in malls all over America, and that no one knew why. I told her that the red-suited Santa Claus we know — the regular one? — was popularized by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. I told her that the White House had not confirmed or denied reports that extensive bombing had started in major cities in South America. I told her, “There’s an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we’re all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there’s nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams.

I also forgot to say that the account that is soon going to have to start -- since I can no longer withstand the pressure of the facts -- the account that soon is going to have to start is written with the sponsorship of the most popular soft drink in the world even though it's not paying me a cent, a soft drink distributed in every country. Moreover it's the same soft drink that sponsored the last earthquake in Guatemala. Even though it tastes like nail polish, Aristolino soap and chewed plastic. None of this keeps everyone from loving it with servility and subservience. Also because -- and now I'm going to say something difficult that only I understand -- because this drink which contains coca is today. It's a way for a person to be up-to-date and in the now.

The marketing techniques were getting refined. There had been a trend away from conventional political consultants and the traditional campaign philosophy of “getting our message out to the people.” Surveys showed the people were allergic to messages and refused to listen, even if the president was on TV saying the water supply was radioactive and giant spiders were running the government. The strategy shifted from “the message” to brand recognition after it was learned that most campaigns were decided during the selection of color scheme, typeface and logo. Campaigns began aggressively headhunting at Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. They spent heavily on focus groups and test markets. Conference rooms full of average citizens ate potato chips and pickle spears while campaign workers auditioned fonts and swatches.

* THE OLD WOMAN remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” *

'I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch on to a reason. When I come to town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the clutches of whisky - that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help himself, that's why he lives the way he does . . . it ain't honest but it's mighty helpful to folks.' 'You mean all you drink in that sack's Coca Cola? Just plain Coca Cola?' 'Yes, ma'am. . .'

There are systems which say, ‘Watch the movement of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it’; there are other systems which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly mechanical. Another method gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have a certain experience because by repetition the mind becomes quiet.

He would drop acid in the morning, go to work, and route trains all day. One morning he decided to experiment with another psychedelic called DMT. He did a line, felt nothing, and decided to snort a whole bag of the orangish powder. “Within an hour my mind was shattered,” McAfee says. People asked him questions and he didn’t understand what they were saying. The computer was spitting out train schedules to the moon; he couldn’t make sense of it. He ended up behind a garbage can in downtown St. Louis, hearing voices telling him to drink Coca-Cola and desperately hoping that nobody would look at him.

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” And she waited year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.

THE OLD WOMAN remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.

But it seemed to me, or at least it had seemed to me in the few years I had been coming and going from this town, there was something finally ludicrous, finally unimpressive about even the people who had all the things to coveted by all the people who did not have them. It was difficult to say why. It might have been only a private blindness, a private indifference which prevented me from seeing how gratifying the possession of power or the possession of fame could be. Whatever money did, it didn't do the things it was popularly supposed to do, and I thought I could speak with a certain minor authority on the matter because [...] I no longer spoke with the suspect voice of poverty. My hostility, if there was still hostility in me toward the rich, now seemed to flow from another source: a feeling, not quite identifiable, that there was something sinister about the way these people lived. But then, how could this life possibly be sinister? What harm could there be in the Braque bought in an art shop in Paris and now featured over the low couch against the pale wall? What danger could accrue from the immense albums of records stored in the living room or the den with the brick fireplace and the spotless desk? Why should it strike me darkly that a huge refrigerator, with Coca-Cola perpetually on ice, and the grapes kept perfectly cold by a servant, stood on the patio beside the thirty-foot pool? Why did I persist in reacting so oddly to all their comforts, their acquisitions, their rarities, their cool, large and enviable homes? The fault, most likely, was in myself; they weren't, perhaps, sinister at all. It was only a kind of voracity which struck me so, an insatiety that gave off, perhaps, a slight aura of the sinister.

Come, get out of the way, boys Quick, get out of the way You'd better watch what you say, boys Better watch what you say We've rammed in your harbor and tied to your port And our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short So bring your daughters around to the port 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World We pick and choose as please, boys Pick and choose as please You'd best get down on your knees, boys Best get down on your knees We're hairy and horny and ready to shack We don't care if you're yellow or black Just take off your clothes and lie down on your back 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World Our boots are needing a shine, boys Boots are needing a shine But our Coca-cola is fine, boys Coca-cola is fine We've got to protect all our citizens fair So we'll send a battalion for everyone there And maybe we'll leave in a couple of years 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World Dump the reds in a pile, boys Dump the reds in a pile You'd better wipe of that smile, boys Better wipe off that smile We'll spit through the streets of the cities we wreck We'll find you a leader that you can't elect Those treaties we sighned were a pain in the neck 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World Clean the johns with a rag, boys Clean the johns with a rag If you like you can use your flag, boys If you like you can use your flag We've got too much money we're looking for toys And guns will be guns and boys will be boys But we'll gladly pay for all we destroy 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World Please stay off of the grass, boys Please stay off of the grass Here's a kick in the ass, boys Here's a kick in the ass We'll smash down your doors, we don't bother to knock We've done it before, so why all the shock? We're the biggest and toughest kids on the block 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World When we butchered your son, boys When we butchered your son Have a stick of our gum, boys Have a stick of our buble-gum We own half the world, oh say can you see The name for our profits is democracy So, like it or not, you will have to be free 'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys We're the Cops of the World

So, uh, where should I…?” I told up the pizza boxes as I trail off. “Oh, right. Kitchen table’s fine.” “I’ll show you!” Madison announces, as if I don’t know where it is, but I let her lead me there anyway. Kennedy shuts the door and follows behind us. I set the boxes on the table, and Madison doesn’t hesitate, popping the top one open. She makes a face, looking horrified. “Gross!” “What in the world are you—?” Kennedy laughs as she glances at the pizza. “Ham and pineapple.” “Why is that fruit on the pizza?” Madison asks. “Because it’s good,” Kennedy says, snatching the top box away before opening the other one. “There, that one’s for you.” Madison shrugs it off, grabbing a slice of cheese pizza, eating straight from the box. I’m gathering this is normal, since Kennedy sits down beside her to do the same. “You remembered,” she says plucking a piece of pineapple off a slice of pizza and popping it in her mouth. “Of course,” I say, grabbing a slice of cheese from the box Madison is hoarding. “Pretty sure I’m scarred for life because of it. Not something I can forget.” She laughs, the sound soft, as she gives me one of the most genuine smiles I’ve seen in a while. It fades as she averts her gaze, but goddamn it, it happened. “You shoulda gots the breads,” Madison says, standing on her chair as she leans closer, vying for my attention like she’s afraid I might not see her. “And the chickens!” “Ah, didn’t know you liked those,” I tell her, “or I would’ve gotten them.” “Next time,” she says, just like that, no question about it. “Next time,” I say. “And soda, too,” she says. “No soda,” Kennedy chimes in. Madison glances at her mother before leaning even closer, damn near right up on me, whisper-shouting, “Soda.” “I’m not so sure your mom will like that,” I say. “It’s okay,” Madison says. “She tells Grandpa no soda, too, but he lets me have it.” “That’s because you emotionally blackmail him,” Kennedy says. “Nuh-uh!” Madison says, looking at her mother. “I don’t blackmail him!” Kennedy scoffs. “How do you know? You don’t even know what that means.” “So?” Madison says. “I don’t mail him nothing!” ... “You give him those sad puppy-dog eyes,” Kennedy says, grabbing Madison by the chin, squeezing her chubby cheeks. “And you tell him you’ll love him ‘the mostest’ if he gives you some Coca-Cola to drink.” “ ‘Cuz I will,” Madison says. “That’s emotional blackmail.” “Oh.” Madison makes a face, turning to me when her mother lets go of her. “How ‘bout root beer?” “I’m afraid not,” I tell her. “Sorry.” Madison scowls, hopping down from the table to grab a juice box from the refrigerator.

Chinese clients used to talk only about prices and vintages, not what was in the bottle. Now the important thing is not how much money you have but how you express it in wine knowledge.” Tim Weiland, former general manager of the exclusive Aman at Summer Palace in the emperor’s onetime retreat in Beijing, suggests that the image of China’s wealthy class as crass nouveau riche—mixing expensive Bordeaux with Coca-Cola, for example—is entirely out of date. “The nouveaux riches of ten years ago are now the old rich,” he says. “They have homes in Switzerland and Aspen, they’re incredibly sophisticated and well traveled—much more well traveled than I am—and they know their wines.

In a crude analogy, we’re advertising Coca-Cola by saying it tastes like turpentine and then growing antagonistic towards those unwilling to take a swig.

There are probably more of us. If we’re all zombies, then there’s got to be more. I say we go up to the cemetery and find out.” “Can we get soda on the way?” Nothing washes down brains better than a can of Coca Cola and a little shameless product placement. (Hey, the undead do have an image problem.) “Soda and cemeteries! Soda and cemeteries!” they chanted. “And braaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiins!” “Hey Bernie, you’re getting pretty good at that.” “Okay, you try.” “Braaa—” the zombie belched, ”—aiiinsss.” Earl heaved the coroner’s body out of the way. They headed off for the cemetery, each trying furiously to perfect their own, unique and personal call for brains like an undead choir, out of tune. “Braaaaiiiiins!” “Braaiiiiiiiinns!” “Braaaaaaaaaains!” “Bray-uns.” “That was just awful.” ...Away into the night.

In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, for example, a group of fishing families had lived since 1914 on islands in the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 1998 the Usina Trapiche sugar refinery petitioned the state to take over the land. The islanders say that the refinery then followed up its petition by destroying their homes and small farms, threatening further violence to those who did not leave. When the fishing families rebuilt their homes, they were burned down. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use Usina Trapiche sugar in their products, but until Oxfam’s campaign they denied responsibility for the conduct of their suppliers. Oxfam asked all of the Big 10 food brands to show ethical leadership by requiring that their suppliers obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous and local communities before acquiring land. Nestlé was the first to support this principle fully. Then Coca-Cola declared a policy of zero tolerance for landgrabbing by its suppliers and bottlers and committed to disclosing its suppliers of sugar cane, soy, and palm oil, to conducting social, environmental, and human rights assessments, and to engaging with Usina Trapiche regarding the conflict with the people of the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 2014 PepsiCo also accepted the principle of responsibility for its suppliers. Associated British Foods, the largest sugar producer in Africa and another Big 10 food corporation, is now also committed to the same principle.12 The gains from these policy commitments are more difficult to quantify than in the example of Ghana’s oil revenues, but in the long run they too may be very substantial.

And by doing so they launched a soft drinks brand that would indeed go on to be a worthy rival to Coca-Cola: that drink was Red Bull. When I say that Red Bull ‘tastes kind of disgusting’, this is not a subjective opinion.* No, that was the opinion of a wide cross-section of the public. Before Red Bull launched outside of Thailand, where it had originated, it’s widely rumoured that the licensee approached a research agency to see what the international consumer reaction would be to the drink’s taste; the agency, a specialist in researching the flavouring of carbonated drinks, had never seen a worse reaction to any proposed new product.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories. This is a mighty fine old world after all if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done. Coca-Cola Girl Mother baked a fortune cake pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures, a ring—you’ll be married, a button—stay a bachelor, a thimble—always a spinster, and a penny—you’re rich. Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better. So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle. You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust Hogging Catfish This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep, make you bottom feed. Like I said, boys, when you tell a whopper, say it like you believe it. Saturday Ritual My Granddad was a cobbler. We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes. Main Street Saturday Night We each were given a dime on Saturday opening a universe of possibilities. All the stores stayed open and people flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began. Dad, laughing shooting the breeze with a group of farmers, drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out who’s really working, who’s just looking busy. There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone— and joy came with but a dime. Market Day Jim Pittsford’s grocery smelled of bananas ripening and the coffee he ground by hand, wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child who came to pick up the purchase, with a large dill pickle Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls, I nibbled my pickle reward.

The patent expressly guarantees the inventor “the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling” the idea for the twenty-year life of the patent. The patent holder can, if he chooses, issue licenses to others to make, use, or sell the idea. The license fees can bring in large sums of money. If anybody tries to market the patented product without obtaining a license, the inventor can go into federal court to get an injunction and money damages. Not a bad deal at all for the inventor. In exchange for those benefits, though, the patent holder has to reveal all the secrets of his success. The patent law says that an inventor must provide “a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in . . . full, clear, concise and exact terms.” The inventor and his company might have expended a dozen years and a hundred million dollars perfecting the idea; once a patent is granted, anybody in the world can acquire the plans—full, clear, concise, and exact—from the Patent Office for $3. If, for example, John S. Pemberton had applied for a patent for the formula he whipped up in his backyard in Atlanta one day in the mid-1880s, the product that he invented—a soft drink that he named Coca-Cola—would have entered the public domain in 1903, when the patent expired. Anybody in the world would have been free from that day forward to brew and sell the drink without paying a penny to the Coca-Cola Company. But Pemberton kept his formula unpatented, and thus secret. Even without a patent, Coca-Cola has been able to defend its formula under a body of law known as trade secret protection, which makes it illegal to copy deliberately somebody else’s commercial idea.

The comedy sketches had all the subtlety of a water-buffalo fight. One sketch involved one of the comics playing an unusual Pachinko machine. The machine was constructed on the lines of a girl wearing only panties and a brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger and let fly. The ball shot to the top of the machine and then fell down into one cup of the girl’s brassiere. This triggered bells and lights and sparks, a panel slid open, and one of the showgirls shoved her unadorned breast through the large hole in the brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger again and the same thing happened again—the ball fell into the other cup and a panel slid back and another showgirl shoved her breast through the other hole. I say another showgirl, because you could tell—they weren’t a set. The comic then pulled the plunger for the third time, the ball fell into her panties, and after the bells, the lights, and the sparks, the crotch panel slid back, and a midget stuck his head out and yelled, “What do we care if we lost the war—we got Coca-Cola!

I love coffee, cheesecake, and Coca-Cola. I've tried all the fad diets, dragged my ass to the gym, decided to only eat salad, and failed at them all. What can I say? Cheesecake is delicious and water tastes like spit. Bring on the sugar and calories, because I've accepted that this is me.