Don't inflict it on the squid (which already squirts out enough brown stuff naturally), but go ahead and serve it to Severn. Now I know where I stand in the pecking order of things. So much for that good feeling when a lady offers to buy you a drink with hopefully friendly intentions. I read the labels when buying food for myself, but just now as I read the gift can, I see under "Noo-trish-y-null Facks", where it just says "N/A". Do they also sell "Dr. Bubba" and "Bubba Dew" and "Bubba-Up" as store brands there as well?

We've escaped Save A Lot (somewhere between Camel-lot and Spam-alot?)in Maryland, but I'm sure we have the same stuff or similar as a store brand by a different name at, say, Bottom Dollar, the low-rent version of Food Lion (if that's not a contradiction in itself).

Diet Coke is the only thing most taverns, bars and pubs carry here and Diet Dr. Pepper tastes the best of the name brands if you're in a gas station or convenience store, but I've found the Hanson's Black Cherry, Grapefruit and Tangerine-Lime as the best among what I've been condemmed to by fate. Like with TV shows, it still isn't the real thing, but it's now a reality thing.

Seriously, in my travels I always tried to sample the local sodas as a taste of what makes the region unique (local artificial color?), so at one time I'd have probably bought one to see how good or bad it actually was on my own. I tried Casco, Grapette and the like and never had the Moxie to finish an entire can of that foul brew.

The same with local beers. I'd drink Naragansett Porter up in Maine and at least try Pearl, Jax, Olympia and the like, when "in-roam". Now the micro-brews have made it a whole new ballgame and it's actually safe to take an Englishman out for a beer in America without getting a lot of flack about their superiority in brewing.

Anyway, Stilly, thanks and the next round is on me!......Something we can hopefully even share with the squid.