Americana

Awesome day. Farnsworth wanted to take his mothers for a trip on the mother road. With Farnsworth behind the wheel, the grandma riding shotgun, and me providing vital navigation from the backseat, we drove Route 66, from Oklahoma City to Tulsa through the little towns of Arcadia, Chandler, Stroud…

First stop was Pops, a special place that touts the world’s largest soda pop bottle and 700 kinds of bottled soda pop for sale. Farnsworth’s Russian professor told him they sell a pop here called “Lenin’s Conscience” – well, we had to try to find that tasty treat!

This turned out to be my favorite thing of the day – I am so easily amused! Actually it was called “Leninade” – a lemonade with a shot of red fruitiness – these jokes just make themselves! The old fashioned glass bottle was covered with hilarious slogans:

Leninade – A Taste Worth Standing in Line For!
Surprisingly Satisfying! Simple Soviet Style Soda
Get Hammered and Sickled!
Drink Comrade! Drink! It’s This or the Gulag!
A Party in Every Bottle!
Join the Party!
Get Really Hammered and Sickled!

And in tiny print:
Our 5-Year Plan: Drink a bottle a day for 5 years and become a Hero of Socialist Flavor!
Beware the Repressed Communist Party Animal who is Really a Proletarian in Denial Masquerading as a Bourgeois Cold War Monger!

I LOVE irony, and have I ever mentioned how much I also love the free market, and did you get that part about the 700 kinds of pop sold? Yes, indeed, there stands Pops like a beacon on the plain, straw raised high in the air, saying “give me your Tired and Thirsty…”

Last thing, had to make sure and get myself a tacky souvenir on the way out (I mean, in addition to the Leninade bottle) – a pop bottle opener in the shape of a pop bottle that doubles as a refrigerator magnet. Awesome!