Resolution #5

Resolution #5 - I am resolved to never drink a soft drink from the can, at room temperature, or without ice ever again.

There are few things more refreshing to me than to take a nice big Auburn Tigers Stadium cup (college fine china) and press it to my refrigerator door until it is 3/4ths full of ice and then pour as much diet coke, or cherry coke zero, or coca-cola classic, or mountain dew, or just about any carbonated beverage you can think of, over it until it is just about at the brim. That is the pinnacle of refreshment. [Grapico... I forgot Grapico...]

Conversely, if you were to take that same carbonated beverage and leave it unrefrigerated, and pull it straight from the pantry, pop the top, and then drink it, you would have a liquid burning down your throat with all the appeal and satisfaction of having drank a perfectly mixed 2-cycle gasoline... It's too harsh and hard. At least that's my opinion.

Ice has the uncanny ability to add a certain refinement and luxury to the lowly canned drink. If a soft drink is to be enjoyed properly certain prerequisites must be met. A proper vessel is a must(i.e. one of the hundred or so stadium cups in your cabinet), and Ice is a close second.

Of all the things I missed while in Russia, none of them are quite as small and simple as the ice cube. It gives a soft-drink the taste and temperature of freedom. I love freedom. I love it like I love a cold drink after cutting the grass in summer time.

So, while adding ice to your cup may not let you get the full 0,5 Liters of beverage you paid your hard earned Ruble for in Russia, who cares! It's good. And it makes me thankful that in America, some things are still free... Two of those things are people and refills.