Please don't shake

I grew up in a place where so-called "pop" beverages weren't called that at all. In Quebec, they're boissons gazeuses. Or, simply, Coke.

Not that I'd notice, since carbonated anything has never really been my thing. It just doesn't go down well with me, and I fail to see how a fizzing concoction with more dissolved sugar than anything else can be remotely refreshing. I'll take water or juice, please and thank you.

Still, the aesthetic of pop, or carbonated drinks, or whatever you call them where you live (discussion for another day, perhaps) is strangely appealing to me. Those little cans, built just so to hold in the pressure, are like low-cost consumer sculpture. The rows and rows of these things, backlit in vending machines that hum forlornly at the backs of convenience stores everywhere, are almost iconic, perfect storytellers for our early-millenium consumption-based culture.

Either that or they're just cans. I've got to stop overthinking this stuff.

Your turn: Thirsty? What do you reach for first? Why?