Dearest Dr. Pepper/Herr Pepper/Peps/sweetie: listen to me. You need to drop the “Dr.” in front of your name, don’t you think? I mean, you were invented by a pharmacist. You know what we call pharmacists in medical schools? Wannabe doctors who couldn’t pass anatomy.
Using your title feels like such a scam. It makes people think you have some sort of advanced knowledge about flavor or refreshment, but you’re simply a soft drink. Sugar, syrup, and some weird artificial spices maybe. You’re literally the opposite of “hard” as in hard alcohol. Take Dr. McGillicuddy’s for instance. He deserves to carry the prestigious doctor title since Dr. McGillicuddy’s is actually a man’s drink. Plus, he has like nine flavors that you can actually tell apart.
Captain Morgan is another one who clearly earned his title. His schooling was all hard knocks as he rose through the ranks. I’m sure your schooling was soft since they serve you at fast food restaurants like Arby’s and Burger King. Plus, there’s no age limit to be able to consume you, which devalues your worth.
No one even knows what your so-called doctorate is in. It’s probably in something useless like corn syrup density or sugar digestion. The whole soft drink industry was created just to inflate people’s egos anyway. You can tell by watching any soft drink commercial.
The standards for any discipline outside of alcohol are simple and are nowhere near as tough as real doctor examinations. In the old west, if someone wanted to get their doctoral degree in alcohol, there used to be jugs of water set up on the bar to prevent students from becoming dehydrated or getting alcohol poisoning. All questions were asked while candidates were blackout drunk, fights would often break out, and about three people would get either shot or stabbed to death. The worst that would happen to a soft drink doctoral candidate trying to defend his dissertation might be a burp or a sugar high.
Alcohol is the only true drink that deserves the title of “doctor.” People may claim that alcohol is elitist since only people over 21 get to consume it. It is inherently a specialized society and it’s the way it should be. People are constantly trying to test how much alcohol they can handle. They build up tolerances and brag about how quickly they can consume it. No one wants to hear any stories about what happened the night before when someone had too way too many cans of pop.
Soft drinks need to be humble and let the important drinks stay in the limelight. Understanding where your place is in the world is what makes America great.
Speaking of which, you really need to take a lesson from Mr. Pibb. He has the right idea: he’s got basically the same flavor as you, he doesn’t sound elitist, and he knows his place. Follow his lead, put your cap back on, and wait patiently in the back of the fridge.
Kurt Zemaitaitis is a musician and comedy writer trying to inject a little more humor into the world. His writing is published in Slackjaw, Points in Case, Robot Butt, and other various sites.