Dipping into the ol’ reader mailbag this week, we find kindred spirits from all corners of the globe.

First up, from my very own beloved Ontario Place, some words from another wily veteran:

too fucking hilarious.

i just did a search for “ontario place sucks” on google, and got to your site via :
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:WafnOc2wkIsJ:www.miscellaneousetc.com/archives/2001_02.html+%22ontario+place%22+sucks&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

i worked as a part time admissions / parking attendant in 1999, and i skipped the year 2000 (which was the year you worked, correct?) then i went back as a full time parking attendant in 2001. last year, i was a operations supervisor.

oh god, it was awful. i vowed never to return.

anyway, i just thought it funny that i came upon your site through that search.

allison

As I already responded to Allison, my time at Ontario Place actually pre-dates hers by several years. I briefly considered trying to direct her to the parking booth that had my name etched into it, along with the year and some memorable quote that I thought should stand in history, or for at least as long as the parking booth did.

Allison also represents the mentality that came to be dominant in most returning OP employees — specifically, that they hold the worst job in human history, and that it’s going to be even worse when they come back next year. You will notice that despite having anything but the blackest hatred for her job, Allison opted to work there for three full summers? Yeah, that’s because despite the screaming customers and the horrible conditions, there’s something extremely satisfying about having a twenty-three year-old as your supervisor.

When morning meetings are only five minutes long because your supe has a hangover and they just want to go back to sleep? Oh yes, you’re doing all right. When I worked there, the tagline for the park was Everyone’s a Kid Inside, and they weren’t kidding — that jackass who was arguing with you about your parking fee was probably barely out of high school, and his manager probably wasn’t much older.

That said, I am too fucking hilarious, so really this was a tribute to accuracy in all ways.

Next up is yet another pair of converts to the truth that Diet Coke with Lemon is poison:

Dear Mike,
I just had to tell you that you now have two devoted fans in Cell Block
154A, otherwise known as our office. Our coke vending machine perversely
dispenses Diet Lemon Coke 50% of the time a regular Diet Coke is requested.
We have dubbed the lemon coke -previously, even, to reading your web page -
Moist Towelette Diet Coke because of its horrid, sanitary taste. I pity the
person who came up with the formula for this disturbing soft drink, because
he/she has obviously never tasted an actual lemon in his/her life. I think
this must be a trend in soft drinks, as I can no longer drink regular Sprite
due to it’s similarity to anti-bacterial hand gel.
Thanks again,
Emily Warren
and
Cameron Young
University of Washington Business School

Emily and Warren, thanks for validating my hatred. I’ve had plenty of discussion from people going either way on Vanilla Coke, the other half of that fabled taste-test, but almost no reaction from the Diet Coke with Lemon — possibly because everyone has had sense enough to avoid it. However, it seems that you’ve discovered yet another one of the Coca-Cola Corporation’s devious plans.

Imagine, for a moment, that your vending machine’s malfunctions are not, in fact, a mistake at all. It could be that some complex algorithm powers its behavior, such that at any given time, luckless consumers hoping to purchase one brand of Coke will instead end up with another, entirely more repulsive type. Not only will this drive sales of the repugnant brands of Coke, as well as increase the revenues for the original appetizing kinds (since most people will simply put another dollar in), but it will also solidify your love of original Diet Coke and Coke Classic at random intervals — virtually guaranteeing that you are a customer for life.

My God, sometimes my insights frighten even me. I will leave the coincidence that such experiments are taking place in a business school, where scores of ambitious marketing types are battling gladitorially for their chance to impress major corportations, to you.

As for the lemon-flavoring formula, I think the development went something like this:

1. Diet Coke is often served with lemons.
2. People in test marketing say that they won’t drink it without lemons.
3. Therefore, there is an untapped diet-coke-lemon-market out there, waiting to purchase a lemon-flavored diet cola.
4. Lemons are very hard to fit into soft drink cans.
5. People choke on shredded lemons, especially when they’re chugging heartily on a drink and not expecting their presence.
6. Somehow lemon flavor must be added to Diet Coke without actually introducing lemons into the drink.
7. Juicing lemons is fucking expensive.
8. Synthetic, petroleum-based lemon-flavoring is shockingly inexpensive.
9. Petroleum doesn’t taste like lemons.
10. If lemons can’t be introduced, what properties of lemon can?

10-1. Lemons are squirty.
10-2. Lemons are bumpy.
10-3. Lemons last a long time in the fridge.
10-4. Lemons keep you from getting scurvy.
10-5. Lemons, when eaten directly, taste like sweet acid.

11. Lemony Diet Coke will taste just like regular Diet Coke, except with a weird sweet flavor that burns painful holes in your face.

With this kind of brainstorming, I should have gone to business school myself.