Words for My Enjoyment

Capri-Sun

February 21st, 2004

Juice in a soft-billowy sealed metallic looking bag, is cool.

When I was a kid in Elementary School, those damn Capri-Sun juice baggie things were the huge fad. Kids who had to buy milk or orange juice always had these longing looks on their faces when they saw their fellow students slurping juice from a bag. It was the hip thing to do. Just being able to take the attached straw that came with the bag and shove it right through the soft achilles heel of the Capri-Sun bag, well, it was like foraging for food all over again in modern times.

I was never able to forage for the glistening, shiny juice bags as a child. And no matter how often I complained to my mother, I never got them.

Until now.

Now, I am an adult. I have credit-cards. I can spend spend spend spend spend way above my means if necessary. I have a special “extra-value” card I use at the local supermarket and as a result I can get a box of ten Capri-Sun drink bags for the low low price of $2.50. If I didn’t have the special “extra-value” card, I’d have to pay $5.00. That’s why, I don’t think you ever see people without the special “extra-value” card drinking Capri-Sun juice bags anywhere because really, who wants to pay five bucks for 10 Capri-Sun bags?

A reminder: I have one of those special “extra-value” cards. I’m no stupid fool.

Recently, though — the whole trend of “bigger is better” has afflicted the Capri-Sun corporation, who has now come out with the Big Pouch. Although at first, it makes me think of the sweaty juices that spew forth from a Kangaroo’s floppy pouch as it runs across the vast tundra, down unda’… Really, the big difference is it contains 11.25 ounces of juice goodness, versus the 6.25 in the traditional juicy-juice bag.

I quietly, and without incident, picked up a pack of six.

I have to say, drinking and slurping out the juice from the Big Pouch was not as exhilirating as I originally thought it would be as a child. Now, I’m not quite sure if this is one of those, I’ve just grown out of it type scenarios. Much like the time I watched The Real Genius on DVD, remembering it was the most hilarious movie I’d ever seen as a kid, and finding it was unfunny and hard to watch as an adult (not to mention cringing at how feminine-looking the main kid character looks). Was this, too, the case with Capri-Sun?

The answer didn’t immediately come to me. Not even now as I write this in hindsight. I have debated going out into the public, slurping my Big Pouches and seeing if anyone grew jealous or envious. I have scouted the juice aisles looking for children who hang on their parents’ legs, screaming for the magic elixir that will make them popular again. I have suspended the Big Pouch in front of thirsty workers in the hot sun.

All across the board, no matter their ethnicity or background — no one is showing the Big Pouch, the love.

And suddenly, I find that I really could care less about Capri-Sun anymore. I mean, c’mon — it’s just a big bag of juice.

I think I’ve…well… Grown out of it.

Posted under Food and Drink. |