One month later

I make my way into our office, sit down, open my laptop, and see a message from Steven:

Curious, I start the video. It begins with a black screen and a tingly melody. Beams of light flicker on, slowly illuminating a retail space. The tingly melody stops, and an American voice begins.

‘When I was about eight or nine years old, we went on a family vacation to this place called “Happy Camp”. They had a spring there with naturally carbonated water, and I can remember thinking about that spring, “If we could pipe this down to our school, we could get soda, and I could have different flavours of soda, and I wouldn’t have to drink flat water anymore!”’

Then a face and name appear:

John walks me through his history with soft drinks. He started working in his father’s store, Galco’s Deli, at five years old. Years later, John took over the business and renamed it Galco’s Soda Pop Stop. Now, he sells more than five hundred different kinds of soft drinks.

‘About ten or eleven years ago, The Pepsi Cola salesman came in and said, “I got the best buy you’re ever gonna get on a pallet of Pepsi Cola cans: I’m only gonna charge you 5.59 a case.” I said, “Thank you, but no thank you, I’m gonna send my customers down the street to Ralph’s, because the cans are gonna be on sale down there for less than what you’re charging me.” And he was like, “Well, you can’t do that, because Pepsi Cola is a demand item and your customers are gonna demand that you sell Pepsi Cola.” And I said, “My customers are gonna be happy I was honest with them, sending them to a place where they can buy Pepsi cheaper than I can.” And after two weeks of really being upset, I said, “Thank you very much Pepsi Cola, for reminding me that I own my shelf space and I can do anything I want.”’

My face is glued to the screen. Whatever to-dos I should be checking off today, I’ve forgotten.

John continues.

‘Big business loves big government. They take up the marketplace, eliminate all the little guys, jack up the prices and control the market.

‘When you look at the candy sections, it’s just Nestlé, Hershey’s, and Mars. When you look at the soda pop market, it’s all Coke and Pepsi.

‘I always wanted to do business with other businesses my size. To help them become unique businesses. And that’s exactly what’s happening. One restaurant we sell to could be selling completely different sodas from a restaurant around the corner that we also sell to. So each business finds its special level and niche, and they do it themselves.’

And so it goes for twelve minutes, until the tingly melody heralds the end of the video. The screen goes black, and I unglue my face.

Twelve minutes ago, I saw in soft drinks a symbol of Western disease. Just like McDonald’s, an image of everything that’s wrong with the world. But here’s John, smiling at me with a bottle of cucumber soda. Because there is such a thing, he just told me even kids love it.¹You can find the video about John on MiracleProject.earth/john-nese. John’s shop and business website is SodaPopStop.com.

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  You can find the video about John on MiracleProject.earth/john-nese. John’s shop and business website is SodaPopStop.com. ↩︎