... of the Pepper kind that is. I finally found one!

Last week, I wanted to take a drive and my son went with me. "Where do you want to go?" I asked him. He didn't know but we headed off down the road anyway.

Just out for a drive, I guess, when suddenly he asked if i wanted to get a Mtn Dew or Dr. Pepper. I said, "What? You know where they sell that stuff? Sure!"

"Yes, I know a place where they sell them. Just head to China Town" he said. So now we had a destination. He punched it into Waze and we were off.

I had guessed that the big Chinese supermarket would have it and I parked out in front of it. They had just closed 🥵

He started heading off down the main drag filled with sushi stands and kioskos. I am good with a walk as long as we are here, I thought.

I was a bit miffed that we had come all this way for nothing, but I could do with a snack. I was thinking to myself, "Well, if the supermarket has them, then chances are that one of these places may have bought some and are selling them late into the night. It was about 9:30 p.m. at this point.

So I am walking down the mall-type street and we are thinking about how hungry we are - or not - and I look over and see this...

I have never had a "cherry 7-up" in my life and I had just begun to consider grabbing the Dews and 7's in the place and I heard, "No, don't buy them there. The guy is a jerk and he wants $8,000 per can ( about $7.25 U.S.). I know a place where they only want $6,000!"

So we kept walking.

Then we came across another place that had ice-cold Dr Pepper and Mtn Dew in their display case. I looked around and everyone was drinking coke and pepsi (not even worth capitalization for those names). I guess nobody was open minded enough to try something new (new here) or maybe they think $1,000 of this money is worth a lot because of all the zeros. Our largest bill does not even buy a dollar's worth of stuff.

I said, "How about we eat here?" He agreed and we ordered. I would put the exact location of the place on PinMapple for you all, but not since someone chewed me out for posting the location of the hottest upscale bistro in San Telmo. I can do without the mute and people freaking out on me.

Back to our story

This place serves above average sushi and I ended up spending a wad of alleged "cash" about the size of $10,000 dollars (if it were hundreds), but our paper currency only has one denomination - one thousand pesos notes which are worth about eighty eight cents each. Lots of counting had to be done but I walked away with enough Dew and Pepper to last me a month if I ration them.

I have been living in this country for over two decades and have missed certain creature comforts from the land of my birth for that long. Many have arrived and I usually shout about them when they do - remember the great pepperoni post?

I don't even drink soda that often, a few per years at most, but these two bring back memories from my youth. I used to work at Taco Bell when I was 13 and I would close the store at 1:00 a.m. Then I would fill up a 32 oz. cup and bring it home. Mtn Dew was my favorite at that time and I would have the cup on my night stand as I laid there unable to sleep. . .

That happened every night that I worked. It was not until years later that I heard about the fact that Mtn Dew had the highest content of caffeine in it, beaten out by the top contender, Fanta orange soda.

Hind sight is 20/20 and I learned the hard way. That was back when parents would not let their kids drink coffee (as if it had booze in it or something), but soda was okay. Little did they know...