Some kind of philosophy on life

Wendy was describing to me a kind of soda that has a unique bottle where you open it by pushing a glass ball (which then gets trapped in the bottle) in. Apparently one of her friend collects the bottles (or used to, before she graduated and moved away), another one of her friend breaks the bottle and collects the balls (I have no idea why, but I've met him and he is certainly...quirky), and you can buy the soda from 99 Ranch.

...so when I went to do my grocery shopping this morning, I got myself a bottle of Ramune soda (lychee flavor), which does indeed operate by trapping a glass ball inside a bottle. Suddenly the reason for collecting the bottle became clear. No doubt this fell in the same line of thought as the thing going around on facebook the other week with the sausage bits with noodles stuck through them -- namely, it seems like the thing to do to "mess with the kids". (I'm deriving an immense amount of pleasure these days from messing with people. It's indecent. It's also really fun.) The soda tasted, as far as I can tell, about average, but the bottle with something trapped in it endlessly fascinating in a juvenile way that reminds me of my fascination with mud and insects between the ages of 4 to 6 (you can imagine mother's reactions) -- it's interesting in an uncomplicated, inexplicable way. So I may keep buying the soda not so much for the taste but for the bottle which, when I thought about it, is an very effective marketing strategy.

It, of all things, reminded me of something that Gaiman once wrote about style in writing. Basically it boils down to: the key to success is delivering what you, and only you, can deliver. This appears to apply to both shapes of soda bottles as well as story telling.

Darn it, I accidentally closed the bottle again with the glass ball. Good thing I kept the plastic thing on the lid so I can open it again.

This is probably some sort of statement on life as well, but I'll leave it to someone else to interpret.