IN this age of copious over-consumption the big heads at 7-Eleven have taken a bold step. They've reintroduced, in its original waxed glory, the most practical Slurpee cup, the 650-millilitre (along with a wee 355-ml "child's portion" size). This is the most positive move in mass-consumerism I've seen for ages.For the last eight or nine years I have been forced to drink my beloved Slurpees from inferior plastic "Gulp" cups. Whereas a whole 795-ml Slurpee would make me over-caffeinated and queasy, and the yellow 454-ml Slurpee cups (waxy as they are) seldom proved to be enough of a good thing, the Gulp's 550-ml capacity was just right.
Oddly, my decision to use a Gulp cup for Slurpees created quite a stir of controversy at my old Sev. One clerk would always berate me because "rules and regulations" forbade putting one kind of beverage in another kind of cup, even though the prices were virtually the same by volume. She never did show me a book where these rules might be found, although we must have had the same argument more than 30 times.
I eventually realized that I could skirt the issue by refilling old cups. She couldn't fault me for reusing a cup I'd already paid for. (This method also saved me 36 cents a Slurpee, and eased my environmental conscience.) But, crafty old witch that she is, she found a way to scold me, this time for not waving the cup in her face and proclaiming it to be a refill the moment I walked into the store.
Thankfully, 7-Eleven's new cups have spared me any further grief. More importantly, though, they've fired a shot over the bow at Gargantuanization. Gargantuanization, marketed as "Super Sizing" by one notorious chain of pudge peddlers, is the seemingly inevitable drift from sensible servings to preposterous portions. It's a marketing tactic meant to instil a sense of value in the consumer -- the "more for less" principle that Winnipeggers understand so intimately. Unfortunately, the side-effect of this popular ploy is a fatter population chowing down on more and more fattening crap.
That is why I consider 7-Eleven's concession to common sense, its realization that more practical cup sizes are appropriate, such a monumental leap forward. The Southland Corp., 7-Eleven's parent company, is a junk-food-industry superpower. It was a major aggressor in the initial Gargantuanization buildup of the 1980s, introducing the huge -- and hugely popular -- Big Gulp. By today's standard a Big Gulp seems modest enough, but in those innocent times it was considered indecent and scandalous by many to drink that much soda in one sitting. Effective advertising soon took care of those outdated notions -- so much so that within a few years 7-Eleven had to offer the even more outrageous Super Big Gulp to stay ahead of its competition.
Sadly, the humongous-soda craze proved to be a like a gateway drug: theatres began offering pails of popcorn bathed in "golden topping" for another 50 cents, and by the '90s you could double your fries at McDonald's for a dime. Hopefully, Southland's conciliatory move toward serving-size sanity can help curtail the madness they so successfully fostered.
As with all previous trends in mass marketing, when the giant farts, everyone else needs to get in line, or get blown over. I've even heard that Wal-Mart is introducing organic products. No word on when they'll be dumping the family-of-40-sized bags of Cheetos, but any accommodation to healthy alternatives must be viewed as progress.
In the end, consumer insouciance is as much to blame for the rise of gross over-consumption as brilliantly pathological marketing. No one gets off on just enough of something -- we've all been successfully programmed to expect better things in bigger packages. Which is fortunate, because Gargantuanization is rapidly turning us into a nation of walruses.
Despite the reintroduction of the 650-ml wax cup, Ryan Kinrade will continue to use the his fine collection of re-usable SpongeBob SquarePants Slurpee cups whenever possible.
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