Concerning Orange Juice
by LloydSkoyd (01.06.03)

This may seem like a rather mundane statement to make… but not all kinds orange juice are created equal.

Honestly, I should have known this when I was buying some orange juice in the Lawrence Dillon’s the other day, but somehow the obvious generalization that cheaper prices mean cheaper products must have slipped my mind. I thought to myself, “Why, all these different brands of orange juice—they can’t be that different…” The cardboard cartons and opaque white plastic containers of orange juice may have had more attractive packaging but were they really better? Looking back on the situation now, I could have answered that very question immediately. And the answer is: yes. My brother often bought the kind (Tropicana, I believe) that came in the opaque white plastic container and that juice was so tasty, it was lucky if it wasn’t empty by the second or third day after the purchase. In the refrigerator of apartment G, no orange juice could last.

Yeah and I like that orange juice with extra pulp, too. I’ve noticed that there seems to be a bias against pulp in the orange juice industry… all these different containers marked with “NO PULP” in big bold letters as if it were a good quality. BULLSHIT, I say. One time (different than the time I’m talking about in Lawrence) I had to creep down low, close to the ground to find me a carton that flaunted its pulpy natural goodness. I felt dirty for doing that… like I was creeping down low, close to the ground buying that cereal that comes in bags. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the bagged cereals but damn why do they gotta make me creep like that? Well, orange juice, pulp or no pulp is one drink I am quite fond of—that is, unless, the orange juice in question was nasty as hell and needed to be disposed of down the sink of somebody’s apartment with a quickness.

The kind of bargain orange juice I’m talking about came in the same container that people find gallons of milk in. You know the ones… the clear plastic containers with the rounded corners all around. I bought that juice, because it was substantially cheaper than any other kind I saw available. This was my only reason for doing such a thing—I thought of nothing else. I mean… sure you don’t want to throw dollars down the drain, buying the most expensive brand of the same product. Would it really make that much of a difference anyway?

Thinking with my pockets landed me the same orange juice that I recall I once had over the summer. The only difference was, the last time I was drinking this same orange juice, it was mixed half and half with some vodka. Go ahead, cringe—I’m cringing—I would whole heartedly agree that vodka is disgusting as fuck. You could imagine how vile this concoction that I was drinking was—but at the time, I simply thought it was the vodka that was making the seemingly innocent orange juice taste bad.  (Actually, there’s a little story that goes with this OJ/vodka incident, but that’s for another time.)

Without the vodka, I still found the juice vile. Not only did it taste bad in its own sense, it brought back a memory of the taste of vodka into my mouth and I ceased all drinking of the orange juice in the clear plastic container. If memory serves me correctly, I “accidentally” left that shit at my friend’s house. I wonder if they drank it… nah, it probably went down their sink with a quickness.

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