Now that the U.S. election season is over, we can catch up on all the important, life-altering events we missed while we were hiding in our basements waiting for the political ads to be neutralized.
There was the news that a French monk was declared The World’s Happiest Man,’ a victory made easier by the fact that he’s spent the last 26 years practicing the art of thinking about nothing. If this is the new standard of happiness, then I’ve got at least one kid who should be ecstatic every waking moment of his life.
But for many of us, the really exciting news came on August 29, when the Church finally put in print that Joseph Smith never-no, not once-said anything about Diet Coke.
This came as no surprise to me and my wired little band of rebels, although we’re happy to no longer have to drink our Diet Coke in caves or behind the water heater.
But here’s what else you may have missed while waiting for the dark days of campaigning to end:
There was a riot at BYU following the caffeinated soda announcement. A riot!
It all started when a BYU spokeswoman declared that the reason caffeinated soda hadn’t been sold on campus until now was that-you need to sit down, because this declaration will make you want to jump right back up again and holler, “Seriously?”-there had never been a demand for it.
I am personally acquainted with scads of BYU faculty members-and by ‘scads’ I mean ‘three’-and I know for a fact-and by ‘fact’ I mean ‘I’m just making this up as I go along’-that contraband Diet Coke has been spirited onto that campus in blue tote bags and giant purses for years.
No demand? What were those poor, deprived BYU students and teachers supposed to do-stand at the cafeteria soda dispenser and demand that Diet Coke squirt out of it immediately or there would be heck to pay? Goodness, they’re all so wan from lack of caffeine they barely have the energy to realize that “Cougar Eats” is a silly name for a food court.
One year Elisa Scharton (the founder of Mormon Mommy Blogs) and I were at a conference at BYU, and we stopped at a service station on our way to the campus to purchase sustenance in the form of junk food and Diet Coke (which, no, is not in the junk food category, thankyouverymuch. It has diet right in the name).
When we got to the campus, another conference attendee caught us with our drinks. I was astonished at her powers of observation, as I had cunningly hidden my bottle in plain sight on the counter where they were handing out name badges and (evidently) ‘judging other people’ day-passes.
This woman cornered the poor kid working the registration desk and demanded an explanation for why we had that drink on the premises. Interestingly, she also complained that when she drank her Diet Coke, she had to do it in her car. Aren’t people funny?
For what it’s worth, I hadn’t given my soda a moment’s thought. But then I’d driven up from Las Vegas and was just happy to see that everyone involved was dressed. So it was possible my moral compass required a bit of recalibration.
But back to the hapless undergrad at the registration desk, who said-and while this is a direct quote, it is not necessarily a comment on the quality of education at BYU, though it does cause one to raise an eyebrow-“We are not affiliated with caffeine.”
I had heard that BYU did not affiliate with terrorist groups or human traffickers. But I was shocked to learn that they had severed all negotiations with caffeine.
Anyway, back to the riot. Sit down again, this gets hairy.
A young man who cannot be identified because I don’t feel like searching Google right now, took 200 cans of Coke and Pepsi to the BYU campus, and began handing them out for free.
He was only able to distribute 50 of the cans before campus police brutally-and by ‘brutally’ I mean ‘quite pleasantly, all things considered’-requested he vacate the premises before they called down fire and brimstone upon his head as per university policy.
So, like ancient messengers bearing unpopular news before him-Jonah and Elijah spring to mind-that brave boy scooped up his caffeinated beverages and wheeled his little cooler off the campus as fast as anyone can travel when dragging a wheeled cooler behind them.
That was it. That was the riot. Hey, I never said it was Kent State.
But although he’d been banished, he’d made his point: Despite the efforts of the BYU propaganda machine, there was obviously an incredible demand for free soda on the BYU campus. Caffeinated? Maybe. But free? Definitely.
I for one am proud of Mormons in the news these days. From Mitt Romney to Brandon Flowers, we’re getting noticed and clearing up a few misconceptions about what it means to be a 21st century Latter-day Saint.
But I’m mostly proud of that young Cougar and his Cooler of Righteous Indignation. Nothing like raising a frosty, frothy Ebenezer in defiance of zealotry everywhere.
And I am so relieved we have the official go-ahead to affiliate with caffeine again. I always enjoyed their peppy little meetings.
And by meeting’ I mean breakfast.’
