'New and Improved' Usually Works

“And no one has any ideas?” Michael asked, in the mildly distracted tone of one whose work is being interrupted by one’s boss.

“I’ve had the machines looked at and cleaned, I’ve had conversations with our suppliers, and I’ve had recent batches compared against the original recipe,” replied Bill Barking, owner and CEO of Zap Pop Company. “They can’t find anything wrong. But customers are saying that their pop has been tasting different recently, and whether they’re right or wrong, it’s started to affect sales. Like, ‘sales are down sixty percent from last quarter’ affected,” he added in hushed tones.

Michael nodded slowly. On one hand, graphs did not feature in his job description. For seven hours a day, five days a week, all he had to worry about was a screen, and even then, if anything like a fire or a burglar appeared on the security footage, all he had to do was press a little button. On the other hand, this made for a very pleasant job, and overall, Bill was a very pleasant boss. He never asked for elaboration when Michael wanted to go home early, or not come in at all; and he never seemed to mind that The Offspring could often be heard through the surveillance room door. If Bill had a problem, Michael felt he deserved some help.

Besides, Michael was good at helping.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Michael was good at overthinking, and when he overthought out loud, he usually wound up saying something that turned out to be helpful.

Already, one of several little voices in Michael’s head was pondering, Sixty percent in a quarter is a lot. And no one knows why…

Another one piped up: Dude, it’s Friday. Say ‘aw, that’s rough.’ Add ‘I hope you figure it out’ if you really feel the need.

Yeah, but that’s too much difference to be seasonal, or coincidental. Something’s going on here. And you know you need to know what.

Five hours until the weekend. Just stay away from this for five hours, and then you can do all the weekend research you want.

But then a third voice came in, and this one had a direct connection to Michael’s mouth: “I could check some of the old surveillance footage. Maybe I’ll spot something.”

Bill’s face melted into the grateful expression of one who has found a volunteer. “I’d appreciate that, Michael. Let me know what you find,” he said, and went back to his office.

After a few sections of his mind groaned and grumbled, Michael got to work.

Two hours later, there was a knock on Bill’s door, which turned out to be Michael. “What’s wrong?” asked Bill. “You look ill.”

Michael waved this observation away, and replied, “Bill, you gotta come see this.” Then he hurried back to the surveillance room, his boss in tow.

As they walked, Michael said, in shell-shocked tones, “I pulled up records of this quarter and last, and you’re right: there’s barely anything different. The only change is that someone named Greg Gallagher retired—”

“Oh, yeah, Greg!” Bill said, nodding. “You wouldn’t’ve met him; in fact, barely anyone knew him. He came in on weekends to watch over the vat. He started here when he was just sixteen, when the company was founded. I remember hearing stories that his mother had made soda, and she'd taught him to make it, too, so he’d always been fascinated by recipes. Once he retired, we didn’t bother to replace him. We have computers now that can watch the vat…of course, something’s gone wrong since then, so maybe the computers don’t do such a great job.”

“I had the same thought, and you know what they say: if something goes wrong, try going back to the last time it worked. So I found some footage of Greg, and…well, see for yourself.” By this time, Michael was back in his chair, and Bill was standing behind him, looking apprehensively at the computer screen. It showed a frozen frame of surveillance footage, depicting the one massive vat that contained a batch’s worth of Zap Pop. On the deck surrounding the rim of the vat was a tall, bearded man, his face obscured by a giant white arrow. Michael clicked a button; the arrow disappeared, and the number at the top of the screen resumed counting.

The footage was grainier than a Bigfoot video, but Bill and Michael could both see that Greg was having lunch. A brown paper bag lay on the floor, along with a can that, once zoomed in on, turned out to be beer. Greg slowly munched most of his sandwich, until only a length of crust was left. He flicked his hand, and the crust seemed to disappear.

“Now, I’ll rewind and zoom in, and slow it down…” Michael’s fingers fluttered over the keyboard. Both he and Bill stared at the video, entranced.

Bill was first to speak: “Did he just throw his sandwich crust into the vat?”

“He did. And watch him with that beer.”

Greg turned the can upside-down over his mouth, and then tossed the can the same way he’d tossed the crust. A moment later, the bag followed. 

“There was an apple core in there, as well,” Michael said, hitting the pause button as if he were taking a break from a horror film.

Bill shook his head. “No wonder the customers are unhappy!”

“Well, that’s the thing…this footage is from five months ago. I’ve checked several videos of Greg, and from what I can tell, he always did this. People aren’t mad because their pop tastes like bread and tin cans; they’re mad because now it doesn’t. Greg’s gone now, so there’s no one tossing scraps into the vat on weekends.”

Bill tapped his chin thoughtfully. “That still seems like a pretty small difference. Hit play.”

Michael did so. Nothing happened for a while, so he sped up the footage again; after an hour flashed by in the space of two minutes, Greg dug into his pocket, and Michael went back to normal speed to watch. Greg was holding a small tin. He took something from it, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Box of cough drops?”

Bill’s face went green. “No. That’s chewing-tobacco.”

“You mean, like the kind people spit— oh, no…”

Neither of them could look away as Greg chewed.

“He can’t!” Michael wailed.

Five months ago, Greg had leaned over the railing.

“There are inspections!” Bill protested. “We would have known!”

Greg tilted his head ever so slightly back. The audio was very faint, but there was a definite HAWWWKKK…

“No, no, NO!” cried Michael. His hand leapt for the mouse. Bill held it back.

PTOOO!

Michael’s brain didn’t know how to react, other than to call for mad laughter. Tears began to run from his eyes. His guffawing hurt like deep sobs.

“I can’t believe it,” Bill whispered. Then, shouting, “Children drink this stuff! My son’s friend has it every day in his school lunch!”

“We…we have to call someone!” Michael managed.

“Not yet,” Bill said. “Keep going. I have a feeling he’s not done.”

Bill was right. At his two o’clock break, Greg left and returned with a large red cooler. “His mouth’s moving,” Michael said. “Let me see if we can hear what he’s saying…” he clicked a few buttons, and then the volume went up.

“...Bunch o’ big city fools…” Greg muttered, opening the cooler and pulling out a sack. “Don’t know the first thing about sodee-pop. Sodee-pop’s a livin thing; you gotta feed it…” He ripped at one end of the sack with a dirty fingernail, and poured its contents into the vat.

“Is that sugar?” Bill asked. “Is he pouring sugar into the vat of sugar-free pop?”

As if in answer, Greg continued, “Can’t have sodee-pop without sugar. Might as well just have water…” He dumped in three bags of sugar from his cooler, but there was still something else in it. “And you gotta have a little kick. Gotta have something the competition don’t know about. Gotta have your secret ingredient…” He went back to the cooler and pulled out a jug.

Again, Michael paused and zoomed in.

“Uh, Bill…”

“Yes?”

“If we were to run tests on that batch of pop, what do you think the odds would be that it would contain moonshine?”

“I think that batch is from long enough ago that we don’t have to worry about that. Now, the question is, how did this even happen? There are contamination tests! How has this gone on without anyone realising?”

Michael chose his words carefully. “Well, firstly, this stuff is caustic. I mean, even the beer can would have dissolved relatively quickly. As for tests, as I understand it, sir, traditionally, we’ve always done our own testing.”

“...Really?”

“Yup. We schedule it, collect samples, and analyze it ourselves.”

“Oh.” Bill’s face showed some slight guilt. “What do you think we should do now?”

“Recall?”

“Sounds about right. I’ll probably just say there was a contamination risk.” Bill turned away and began to head back to his office.

“But what about all those complaints?” Michael asked after him.

Bill froze for a minute. Finally, he said, “We’ll stick with what we have, and slap a ‘New and Improved’ label on it. That usually works. Now, let’s go home and just try to forget about this.”

Over the weekend, the vat was cleaned and new cans were ordered. Sales went back to normal over the next quarter, and even surpassed previous numbers.

Michael and Bill each did their best to avoid anything in cans.