Saturday, August 30, 2008

When Soda is not Coke.

I often thought about this incident while I was in college. I think it highlights the difference in thinking and perceiving between autistics and NTs.

One day at a soda machine , There was this guy hovering about. I indicated that I was going to buy a coke.I bought Ithink rootbee or sprite. He said that wasnt a code it was soda. I remeber that his tone ws harsh. He told me I should call it right. I told him people call it pop as well.

Others came by, I called it coke again he was really rude. At this point he really started to annoy me. After all is said and done I left in a foul mood. was honestly thinking what was this guy's problem.

Later I came by. He was there again. I watched him "correct" others. I was incensed. I was thinking who was this guy to go on and off on people like that. I didn't like. So I went up to him and confronted him. I was yelling . "Who are you to harass people " etc. He was angry too the upshot was he left in a huff saying something this bs etc.

I was very proud of myself. I related how I took care of this bully to others. And they were like "er, students are sometimes paid to ensure brands like coke are protected. Companies loose their trademark if there brandi s used generically. All that is not word for word. All I could do as say "oh". But still that guy had an attitude problem.

3 comments:

codeman38 said...

Heh, incidentally, have you seen the Pop vs. Soda page? Interesting geographic distribution to who calls soft drinks what. "Coke" as a generic term is quite common in the southeast...no doubt partly due to the fact that Coca-Cola was invented here...

Anonymous said...

Heavy subject, that. Soda, pop, Coke, whew, the mind boggles!

Say, what happened to that Popular blog entry "Karl Marx was human garbage" ? It seems the entire blog entry and all it's comments just disappeared. Or was it censored out of existence?

Captain Janeway said...

When I was a kid I used to call all soda "coke". One time at a restaurant I ordered and Orange coke and the girl behind the counter looked perplexed at me and said, "You want coke mixed with orange soda?" That's when I realized that I was calling all pop by a brand name. I guess it's like people calling all diapers "pampers" or all copy machines "xerox" machines.