Okay, I’m going to come clean here.
I have a problem with caffeine. But it’s under control… sure I’ll drink a couple cups of coffee in the morning, but my Mountain Dew intake is WAY down. These days, I may have one a couple times a week with lunch, if that. And if you talk to my old boss, Nelah, from Cobb County, back when I could polish of a 12 pack in a single work day, she’d say I’ve come a long way.
Honestly, living in Belgrade helped me kick the Mountain Dew habit because as a whole, Europeans don’t like it. Seriously, I have NEVER seen Mountain Dew on the local market in a European country. And upon arriving in Belgrade, Aleksandar, the commissary manager of fifteen years, was not prepared for the Dew Monsters cycling in to post.
You see, according to Aleksandar, he would buy a couple cases of Mountain Dew each year just to have a little extra variety in his drink coolers and on the shelves. And for fifteen year he had never sold all of it by the end of that year.
That is until my alien belly and his friends rolled up in town.
Apparently, in the winter of 2008, five Mountain Dew drinkers rolled into Belgrade at the same time, taking Aleksandar completely by surprise.
In less than two weeks, all of the Mountain Dew in Serbia was gone.
Sure, Aleksandar would always order more, but his quarterly shipments from Ramstein never seemed to keep up with demand… and since it wasn’t available on the local market… you simply learn to live without.
That is… until Qatar.
On my way to Islamabad I had a five hour layover in Doha, Qatar, which is actually a very nice little airport with free Wi-Fi, a GREAT cafeteria and a REALLY GREAT dinner special. For around five bucks, I ended up with a plate full of rice, lamb stew, chickpeas, and samosas… plus a drink. Guess what I had?
That’s right. My old friend Mountain Dew was there to greet me on my travels. It was a special moment for us as we enjoyed that meal together. But there was something really amazing about that meal… something about it was just perfect… and I couldn’t quite place it… and that’s when my glass of Mountain Dew looked up at me and said, “It’s because I have real sugar… no high fructose corn syrup.”
Me: Seriously?
M Dew: Of course I’m serious, would I lie to you?
Me: No, no you wouldn’t!
M Dew: And saddle up good buddy. The good folks over here, in this part of the world, love me just as much as you do! I’ll be waiting for you when you get off the plane in Islamabad, too.
Me: Oh, Mountain Dew, you’re my best friend!
Yep… this is pretty much how I remember the conversation going… I should probably also tell you that I hadn’t slept for about 24 hours at that point… so… yeah.
But even if I was mildly delusional at the time, Mountain Dew was right! He was waiting for me in Islamabad! It’s a very popular beverage over here.
Despite all of our differences, Mountain Dew is really something that we all have in common… and can possibly build from!
I call it, Mountain Dewplomacy.
BTW: We’ll just leave out the fact that Mountain Dew was originally intended to be a Whiskey chaser, okay? We don’t need to bring that up… because… you know… some folks don’t dig the moonshine.
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