Dew Nuggets

by J.S. Holland

Had a bit of a traumatic moment today. I was out and about running errands, and had a can of Mountain Dew along for the ride. I was parked on Sixth and Jefferson waiting for a friend. And then I took a slug of the drink and felt something solid, not liquid, transfer into my mouth along for the ride. I felt one of them go down my throat. I freak out about such things and immediately opened the car door to expectorate it all into my hand.

Sure enough, there in my palm were two tiny glistening nuggets of yellowy-orangey mystery WTF, with a slight tinge of pink and brown. I felt like vomiting right then and there, as the worst thoughts entered my mind about what this could be. I gently poked at these globs with a thumbnail, examining their texture and trying to identify this unwanted nostoc from Mt. Dew. I tried to tell myself that this was fruit pulp that somehow fell into the vats at the bottling plant, but parts of my brain screamed at other parts of my brain that I knew damn well there's no real fruit involved in the manufacture of Mountain Dew. Then I started having thoughts about it being mammalian in nature, like maybe these are fragments of mouse brains, or perhaps lipid fat from an errant possum caught in the gears of soda progress.

I took dozens of pictures immediately, as "evidence" for a complaint.


Feeling my blood pressure rise, I drove home in a panic. I opened a beer and chugged it, rationalizing that the alcohol might kill whatever deadly germs I was certain to have swallowed. I got online and started scoping out labs that could analyze the sample. I pondered which one of my attorneys would be best to contact about this affront.

And then I looked down on the floor. There, around my feet, were more of these identical tiny yellow globs. Then I remembered that while having some heated-up leftovers of Arni's Pizza just an hour prior, I'd sat the Dew can on the floor at my feet. These globs were bits of cheese off the pizza that had fallen off during my wild dog-like feeding frenzy, and into my soda unawares.

Oops.

Ahem. Yes, well. Movin' right along. Hated to waste these cool-but-gross macro shots though.