Mike's SURGE Story
Mike wrote in to share his story about the days when SURGE was truly our king:

Ahh, where to begin. This may get a little long, but it's more than worth it in my own mind.

My first run in with the wonderful citrus carbo drink would have to be around 1999. I had seen plenty of commercials on TV of people all but mauling each other with bats to get this drink, and wanted to buy it, but back in 1998 when I was still to young to drive myself anywhere, my parents refused to buy it, confusing it with Jolt and thinking it wouldn't do anything but wire me up for the week. Once I had free range to drive where I pleased, I bought some delicious Surge and tried it for the first time, getting hooked on the first mouthful. It then somehow became my lifeblood. I wouldn't just want it, I would expect it with every meal. I wouldn't even go into a Pizza Hut or BK or any other fast food place that didn't serve Coke Products, because I knew I'd have a 0% chance of getting my soda. Paychecks were blown, cans were emptied, and frequent bathroom trips were made, but I was happy.

Around this time, I was spending the night at my friend Brian's house, and the next day he had to go for an orthodontist visit, so I tagged along. His mother took us there, and then we all stopped at a local pizza place for lunch. Inside the cooler I spied the green bottles glowing from 30 feet away. I grabbed 2, one for myself, and one for my friend and said "You've GOT to try this stuff." He agreed, and as we sat and waited, we each guzzled down our bottle. He was just as hooked as I was. When our pizza arrived, we each hit up the cooler for another Surge, and his mother raised a brow and said "You're drinking alot of that stuff, huh?" Yes. Obviously. His mom then asked "Well..can I try some of that stuff?" Brian handed her his bottle and she took a small sip. "Ugh..yuck. It tastes like weird Fresca..I don't know how anyone can like this stuff." LIES!! I had to restrain myself from jumping up, and correcting the confused woman. We each finished up our second bottles, and the pizza, and his mother was set to go, and started to pay. "Wait..2 more sodas!" Brian yelled as we raced to the cooler again. What did we care? She was paying. "What?! More? Well..ok..but don't drink it until later. You've had enough for now."

We had them gone before the 10 minute car ride home.

Months passed and Friday night turned into "payday and surge night" when we'd cash our check, run to isle 9 and grab 2, if not 3 12-packs of our liquid savior. Making a quick stop in the frozen food section to get 2 for $5 Pizzas, we'd cash out, hop in our respective cars and race to his house for a weekend of video games, tormenting people in chat rooms, terrible music videos, weird sci-fi movies, bad music, anime, celebrity deathmatch, and Surge. We'd have maybe 2 cans gone by the time we were at his house. One night, almost at the end of the reign of the mighty soda, his mother came in to tell us to shut up, because "it's 2:45 am and some people have to work in the morning!" We asked "who?" but were threatened with humorous glares from a half-awake, angry woman without her glasses on. The next morning (we were still up then), she came in his room and saw at least 20 empty cans from the night before, if not more, as well as another dozen or so full ones laying on the floor (we dumped all the cans out to prevent us from having to actually 'reach into' a box to get one. too much time wasted when we wanted another soda 'right now!'). She looked at us, and then the cans, then back at us and said with a disgusted look, "How can you drink so much of that Splurge sh*t!?" I looked up from the computer, Brian up from his video game, and he exclaimed to her. "It's Surge, b*tch!!" and reached out with his foot and kicked the door shut. We laughed so hard we couldn't think straight. She flung open the door and yelled something, but he had no idea what it was. Surge was our king, and it held 100% of our attention.

Several weeks later, on another Friday, we took the same trip down isle 9 to the far end to grab the bright yellow green case. I grabbed 2 when Brian looked at me and said "What are you getting that stuff for?" I looked down and saw I was holding two Mello Yello 12-packs. In disgust, I flung them in an open spot on the counter, and reached for the other yellow boxes. More Mello Yello. It was the only thing left in the store. Surge had vanished. We tried several other stores, gas stations, mom and pop shops. Everything. gone. We had been robbed. Coke took the product it had us dangled on like puppets and replaced it with a knife in our back. The Surge era had ended.

Bring back Surge!!

Mike

Thanks Mike!