A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.

That's always seemed like sage advice to me. I'm not quite 50 yet, but sooner or later, everyone needs something to take the edge off life's endless march of crap. However....

Not so long ago, my aunt brought over some Baileys mini bottles, you know, the size that college students smuggle into football games to "surreptitiously" pour Fireballs into the Cokes they buy at concession stands (shhh, it's a secret!). I thought I'd give one a taste test by adding it to a cup of coffee, or, as my aunt says, my cup of coffee-flavored milk.

Fun fact: I also wasn't a coffee drinker until comparatively late in life. I started some time around 2016, I guess, when my aunt bought me a red Keurig for my birthday. And now my teeth are the color of Grey Poupon. In other words, it's never too late to pick up a bad habit.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had concerns that I would enjoy alcohol in my coffee, as I have rarely had an alcoholic drink I enjoyed. I couldn't finish even one of the 6-pack of Boston Lager my Mom bought me my Senior year of high school; the Screwdrivers so popular in my Freshman college dorm only made me sick; the Mind Erasers my waiter coworkers drank at the local bar had the flavor of poison; and the Tom Collins my girlfriend made to ease my nerves the night we lost our virginity only made me think about the terrible taste her tongue left in my mouth. ("Sex is not worth a Tom Collins," would make a good title for my autobiography.)

It took me months to work up the courage to try a Baileys Irish Coffee, and when I finally did, well, it tasted as bad as I feared. Each sip tasted more medicinal than the last. After four, I poured it out and had a Coke instead.

It's probably for the best. I'm an angry drunk anyway.

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A local man has been arrested for stealing seventeen thousand dollars worth of Pepsi in one month from the bottling plant where he worked. Putting aside the most obvious question — "who would be crazy enough to steal Pepsi?" — the second most pressing question becomes "how much Pepsi will $17,000 buy?"

Since The Newnan Times-Herald gives no actual details of the crime other than the dollar amount, let's do some dirty math based on the most expensive container of Pepsi I can buy locally. A single serving 12-oz can from a vending machine goes for $1, setting the price at about 8¢ per ounce. That makes $17,000 worth of Pepsi more than 212,000 ounces, enough to fill nearly 1,500 12-packs.

My estimate above was retail prices. The bottler does offer catering services, so it is possible they charge by the drink somewhere. However it's more likely that the cost reported was the wholesale price. If that's the case, double that estimate to 3,000 12-packs. That's enough Pepsi to fill an average swimming pool!

Keep in mind that both of those estimates are set by the $1/can price. For all I know, that stolen Pepsi was syrup for soda fountains. That brings the per-ounce cost down to half-a-cent per ounce. At that price, we're talking a theft of over 2,200 gallons of Pepsi, approximately 80 tons! (While this amount is unlikely, keep in mind that Americans do drink over 36 million gallons of carbonated soda every day, so there is a lot of Pepsi out there to steal!)

Whatever the true numbers, this is just another case demonstrating that most criminals are stupid. It may be one thing to think you can get away with sneaking an occasional pen from the office, but you have to expect someone to notice when you back a tanker truck up to your cubicle.

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