“Can I get a pop?”

If you’re a Southerner and you hear this statement, two things happen.

Your inside voice says, “Oh, a Northerner. Isn’t that cute!  Bless their heart.”

Your outside voice says, “You mean, you’d like a coke?”

I’m sorry, but in the South, it’s just not a pop.

It’s a coke.

I don’t care what type or flavor it is: Diet, Classic, Sprite or 7up, SPLENDA®  or Truvía®, decaff or caff, leaded or unleaded.  Our grandparents called them “cold drinks,” but we call them cokes because not only was the Coca-Cola Company founded in Atlanta, but it rapidly became the primary carbonated beverage sold in the region, and then the nation and then the world: providing jobs to generations, expanding into a global empire, and becoming “a world-wide symbol of refreshment, fun, good times, and the American lifestyle.”

To most Southerners, Pepsi’s just another type of coke.  A little hard to find, a little too fizzy.  Eh. Whatevs. I think you can get one at Taco Bell.

When I’m in “enlightened” company (read: Europeans, people with advanced degrees, anyone from New York City), I will attempt to use the word “soda” instead, in an effort for sophistication.

Should I convey that same term to the server or bartender, they will more often than not ask what type of vodka I’d like to go with it.

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 Still, the pause that refreshes.