Affe #230

About Affe mit Waffe Deprecated

Never believe anything the stupid monkeys in the advertisements wanted you to believe. Asa G. Pongerton should have known better. He had been skeptical when the product was called "Dr. Snuggle's Compound Syrup of Banana Flower" and would have done well to continue to trust his gut. But in the age of temperance, the drink, which had since been renamed "Colobo Cola" or "Coloba" for short, was very popular with apes and apelings alike. The temperance movement was a social movement now widespread in the Monkeyverse that promoted temperance, or total abstinence from consuming alcoholic beverages. The participating apes typically criticized alcohol intoxication or strongly advocate abstinence, and their leaders emphasized the negative effects of alcohol on the health, personality, and family life of primates. When Asa first heard the word "teetotalism" from his wife, he was horrified because he thought they would only drink tea from now on. He definitely wasn't keen on "hot leaf juice" – as he irreverently called the concoction – at all times. Fortunately, this misunderstanding was quickly cleared up: The "tee-" in teetotal was the letter "T", so the term should actually be "t-total". No monkey really knew where the origin of this unusual word lay, but it was probably a reinterpretation of the term "temperance total" that influenced its semantic development. As he listened to a lecture by his wife about the negative health effects of alcohol, he was relieved that the only condition was to simply stay away from it. He should be able to do that easily... At least that's what he thought.

Over the next weeks, he realized that this wasn't going to be easy. In the evenings with monkeys from his company and friends, he was always looked at with irritation if he only drank water. At social gatherings, he could switch to a glass of banana juice with a splash of cherry syrup for color, but because of the consistency, he always felt like consuming a breakfast smoothie rather than an aperitif. By the end of the month, he realized he was beyond despair without alcoholic beverages. It wasn't so much the lack of cocktails, beer, and wine as it was the non-existence of a non-alcoholic alternative to water. After a while he got tired of juices too. Non-alcoholic beer was usually quite palatable, but with non-alcoholic wine or sparkling wine he could fall back on juices. Once he had tried non-alcoholic gin; the taste experience was like a big gulp from the barrel where his wife collected rainwater for gardening – stale and a bit musty. After that he stuck again with water, at least it tasted fresh. It was at this point that he first became aware of Colobo-Cola, which was being marketed in advertisements as "The Temperance Drink" and which included the kola nut as a caffeine source in the recipe. It consisted of a base syrup sold as an over-the-counter dietary supplement for an upset stomach, mixed with carbonated water, which was believed to be good for the bodily constitution. The drink had many health claims and was advertised as a remedy that would cure headaches, relieve fatigue, and calm nerves. Additionally, it was marketed as "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating" and "invigorating". With these effects, according to the slogan, it was also suitable for the growing apelings to actively start the day with a glass of Coloba. In hindsight, by looking at the ingredients list and quickly estimating the amount of sugar in a bottle of Coloba, Asa understood why this "precious brain tonic" made his offspring so happy in the morning.

However, for Asa it all ended as abruptly as it had begun with the bubbling brown sugar water. First, a new variety of Colobo-Cola with a cherry flavor was launched – the "Cherry Coloba". That alone was offensive enough to make the drink sink even lower in his opinion, but beyond that, mixing Cherry Coloba with rum became popular in the Monkeyverse, and the more aged the rum, the better. For Asa, this amounted to religious sacrilege and sealed the end of Coloba Cola, now forever banished from the Pongerton household. Given the overall situation, he thought, maybe tea wasn't such a bad option after all.

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