Apu, I'll Have Another One

In honor of my people, I need to note the 40th anniversary of the Slurpee...

The Slurpee, like so many great innovations and perfectly nice human beings, was an accident. In the late '50s, a Kansas Dairy Queen owner named Omar Knedlik found his soda machine was on the fritz. He tossed some bottles of pop in the freezer and discovered people went into conniptions for the slushy texture that resulted when the soda partially froze. Wheels turned. He invented a machine to slushify water, CO2, and flavored syrup. In 1965, 7-Eleven bought the machines from Knedlik, hired an ad copywriter to coin an irresistible name, and the Slurpee was born. Back then it cost a dime. Four decades on there have been more than 200 flavors, ranging from the earnestly goofball of yesteryear (Blue Blunder Berry) to the quasi-classy of today (Mochaccino). Michael Jackson reportedly plunked down $75.62 to install a Slurpee machine at Neverland Ranch. Eleven million Slurpees are sold each month and hit the eager palate at a cryogenic 28 degrees. In total some 6 billion brains have been frozen since the dawn of the Slurpee. Here in the United States the drink is most beloved in Detroit, but, curiously, it's up in the Winnipeg tundra where the Slurpee is most popular—further evidence, at least to this patriotic-when-convenient mind, that Canadians really just want to be Americans.

But enough with the logistics. Explaining the appeal of the Slurpee is a bit like explaining the appeal of pure oxygen or terrific sex: Those who don't get it are simply not to be trusted. Slurpees are divine because of their unapologetic garishness, a giddy reminder that no amount of sugar is ever too much. That the expression "brainfreeze"—meaning the needling headache brought on by drinking something too cold too quickly—was trademarked in 1994 says it all: The point is masochistic, to find pleasure in pain, to embrace evil over good. (Sometimes this is taken too literally: Near my Maryland home, a teen was recently convicted of murdering another teen for trying to buy a girl a Slurpee.) My point here is to say that it's not (too) hyperbolic to equate drinking a Slurpee with surrendering to the greed and gluttony that is being a chronically shortsighted, diabolically unthinking American.

I think I'll be stopping at a 7-11 on the way home today... although truth be told, I'd prefer a Wawa.