Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Houston City Council Don’t Want to Be Peppers, too.

How bizarre. Melissa Noriega is poised to take her seat tomorrow at a swearing in ceremony in Houston City Council chambers at 9 am, and she comes in at such a time to witness a true firestorm of controversy on the city council.

It seems the Dr. Pepper Bottling Company, in its wily, conniving and underhanded fashion, has slowly but relentlessly invaded the city’s soft drink vending machines venue by promising a higher return of the take; higher than either Coca Cola or Pepsi were willing to offer. The city gets 45% of what Dr. Pepper makes in its city-wide vending machine sales. It means 700 large per year for the city.

But now . . . now they threaten to take over the venue at the very building that the city council works in: city hall. Want a coke between meetings? You will be out of luck.

Said Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck of the change that looms on the horizon, "I love Dr Pepper, but I'm a Diet Coke gal, now."

Guys, guys, I’ve got her solved for you. I face this problem daily at my workplace. There the vending machine company, who do sell Coke and Pepsi, as well as Dr. Pepper, by the way, charges 75 cents per 12 fl. Oz. can! Can you believe it? That’s $9 for a 12 pack. When the price they charged went up by 50 percent a couple of years ago I started bringing in 12 packs to work. I keep them in a little mini fridge like the ones you see in college dorms.

So it’s that simple. Let the visitor schmos drink that prune juice. You have your Diet Cokes on ice back in the office.
Update:
Sources close to the above-mentioned newly-elected city-council-to-be-tomorrow member have confided that Melissa Noriega's soft drink preferences run exclusively toward Diet Dr. Pepper. I smell a rat, and I'll bet that Anne Clutterbuck, once she finds this out, will smell one, too.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

At NASA they charge $1.00 for a 16oz drink from the machines and $1.25 at the onsite cafeteria. $1.48 at the local gas station. $1.18 at the local Randalls.

So, when they go to more than a dollar a pop, the friges come in.

Hal said...

Hey, it's nice to know when your life decisions mirror those of rocket scientists.

Anonymous said...

Red light cameras, license plate frames, and now Dr. Pepper???? What revenue stream is next? ;-)

I'm a Diet Dr. Pepper man, myself.

muse said...

The funny thing about refrigerators at work is that they suck the life out of the electricity bills. Our tax dollars at work - paying high electricity bills so that rocket scientists have cheap soft drinks!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hal said...

junk, I don't allow name calling on my blog. Or rather let's just say that only I can call people bad names.

I am a little embarrassed for you because the entire post about Dr. Pepper was meant to be whimsical in nature, not serious at all. I found the whole story in the Chron very cute, and it was itself, whimisical. That Melissa Noriega is herself, as I later found out, an inveterate DDP drinker just added to the fun.

Sorry I upset you. It was supposed to be funny.