Grape Soda

In times such as these, nothing satisfies me like a grape soda. I was thinking of proposing the Nobel Prize to the chemistry team who invented artificial grape flavor, back in the Twentieth Century. You cannot scoff at a good artificial flavor. Take, for instance, artificial vanilla... please! I cannot deal with it, eat it, or even smell it in a candle or car air freshener. It gives me a migraine! The difference between real vanilla and artificial vanilla is like the difference between diners and McDonalds, between fresh vegetables and bunched up wet toilet paper in a public toilet, between Venice and cheap piece of shit Venetian blinds that fall down whenever you open or close them.

I was going to suggest that the flavor of grape soda somehow captures the essence of real grape, but it is of course nothing like real grape. What it is, artificial grape flavor, and grape soda, is an amazing flavor all of its own, sublime in its own way. Also, it always reminds me of the scene in "The French Connection" where Gene Hackman is trying to follow the guy in the subway and tries to be inconspicuous by stopping at a vendor, where he says, "Get a grape drink?"