Please play again

(Warning: CAPS FOR EMPHASIS will be used, perhaps abused, in this post.)

My Pepsi bottle just called me a loser.

I never notice that I'm playing a game until I lose it and feel suddenly disoriented and... lacking? This goes for any game, including games I willingly begin, like pool, checkers, and Try to Outrun the T So You Don't Have to Wait Twenty Minutes for the Next One. Each time I lose this kind of game, I say, "Wait, I don't think I was playing. Was I playing? Do over! Do over!"

You can imagine how crushed I am that my Pepsi bottle called me a loser when I didn't even know there was a game on. I just untwisted the cap and noticed some writing on the inside:

PLEASE PLAY AGAIN

But... but... I wasn't ready!!

And so, no kidding, I rescrew the cap, place the Pepsi next to the monitor, and next time I'm thirsty I check again, as though maybe I somehow gained skill in this game since the last time I opened the bottle, as though now it will say,

JOBIV, YOU ARE A WINNER! HOLY COW, WE NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D BEAT US! DIDN'T SEE THAT COMIN'!

Keep in mind that at this point I still haven't even looked at the bottle to see what I'm winning or losing. I'm just crushed that I lost. When I finally look (that is to say, this very second while I'm looking), I see that I have been denied a FREE Song on iTunes. That's right, I have managed not to win a single, that is ONE, song from a music service I don't even use! Even if I had won, I don't have an iPod or any other device that plays digital music. I don't even have my own computer, so I couldn't download it there. I could maybe burn that one song to a CD, and that could be the Sacred CD of the Song I Won From Pepsi.

And then I would still be a loser.