SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

OVER THE MOUNTAIN

You know how it is. No matter how exciting the workplace, there always happen to be slack moments that need to be filled with something other than work.

That's what happened six years ago when my friend Mark and I tried to amuse ourselves by drinking Mountain Dew in excessive quantities.

It wasn't the Dew, really. The company had a game tied to the NCAA Final Four in which you could either win a prize by drinking a bottle that had the name of the eventual national champion under it's cap, or you could win some swag by accumulating points for each Dew you drank.

Between the two of us, we figured we could do both.

We were half right.

I lost count, but I think he and I drank damn near 300 combined gallons of the stuff. We got so nauseated by the caffeine avalanches and the sugary sweetness that we switched to Diet Dew. That tasted even worse. To this day, I shudder when I accidentally brush against the Dew button on a vending machine.

A mountain of caps eventually were accrued. It didn't hurt that some of the caps actually gave you additional free Dews. And, by quirk, we nailed three of the Final Four teams. But not the one that won.

After it was all done, we had enough to get two T-shirts and two Dew do-rags, neither of which either of us wears to this day.

But we felt like we had accomplished a goal. We also had the rotted teeth and kidney problems to show for it.

Mark and I still e-mail each other whenever we see something Dew related in the news. He sent me this item yesterday:

An 18-year-old man survived but was in critical condition after losing at a variation of Russian roulette (six open cans of Mountain Dew, one spiked with antifreeze) at a party in Princeton, W. Va., in May.

Mark's question to me: "Is there a difference between Dew and antifreeze, and is the Dew worse?"

Mark, you and I know the answer to that.

As a follow-up, I can say that I think the Dew contest is a phenomenon that is particularly effective in the OCD world of newspapering. Rommie just did the same thing with a Dew promotion and accumulated almost 60 caps before the bottles with the points caps started disappearing.

Problem was, you needed a minimum of 60 caps to win even the smallest trinket.

Posted by Jeff at July 7, 2004 08:08 AM