Coke Points: The intersection of shame, embarrassment and pride.

The delivery guy stood on my porch while his truck idled in the cul de sac.  He told me he had, “a big package,” and I needed to sign for it. 

“I’m not expecting a big package,” I said.  He just smiled.  “Well you’ve got one, so go ahead and sign and I’ll go get it.”

A few seconds later I knew what it was, and realized I’d been waiting more than a year for this box.  Sort of.

It was sometime during the summer of 2007 that Jonathan, my oldest, decided to collect Coke points.  You know what they are – tiny little incentives to use Coke products.  Buy a coke, enter the number on the cap in your account and accumulate a point.  Get enough points and you can order from their catalog. 

I thought it was a waste of time, but he was faithful about it.  He figured out how to do it from his cell phone and it took him no time at all.

I started saving the caps from my daily visit to the vending machine.  Co-workers gave me theirs.  Mary discovered that the end flaps from 12 packs of cans had a code worth ten points, and saved those.  Ben and Ty brought their caps home as well. 

When Jonathan went off to college, we threw the caps in a coffee can.  It filled up pretty quickly.

A potential mother load of Coke points turned out to be Lane Stadium.  When the football games ended the ground was covered in Coke caps.  To his amazement, the stadium was crawling with people collecting them – but he got his share. 

He’s a communications major and works at VTTV.  He did his first story on fans doing what he did!

Slowly (very slowly) the points accumulated. 

That’s why the delivery guy was standing on my porch.  In the box, was the result of 3,902 coke points: A video game chair.

This is not just any chair.  When he “plugs in” the chair enables him to feel and hear the game.  There are high quality speakers in the headrest.  It vibrates.  It rumbles. 

I can feel it in the next room.  In fact, I can feel it in the bedroom upstairs!  All of us know when Mario makes a turn in his go-cart.  How pleasant.

So as the guy walked toward me with the big box, I’m thinking that my family consumes too many soft drinks, that we spend too much time in front of the TV, and that we spent our accumulated effort on something that looked like it was gonna be noisy.

Thus, the culmination of his/our “points gathering” causes several lines to cross.  Embarrassment for an unhealthy lifestyle, irritation from the constant rumbling from the chair and yes, pride.

Pride?  Although I aver this somewhat defensively, there is something to be said for sticking to a project, and getting your whole family to join in.  Although I have a strong dislike for video games, I gotta admit that wasn’t the case when I was 20. 

At the end of the day, I must admit that the chair, while a bit tacky, and a lot representative of the evolution (disintegration?) of our culture, does what it’s supposed to do.  If you’re into video games, loud music, and feeling the game, this thing is the deal.

I have to admit, it’s kinda cool.