on the inside of the cap of my bottle of apple-cranberry juice — a juice so tart that after every slurp you have to pucker up and say “wooh!” — is printed something called a “liddle fact™”. this one states plainly, “fish can drown”.

are the copywriters at the juice factory disgruntled? are they not supposed to be writing upbeat little morsels like the last one i got, about honey bees? truly, i am surprised.

what i also found surprising, the first seventeen times i saw it on tv, was the ad for new fanta spider. so, there’s a japanese guy studying at his desk and suddenly he sneezes in the way that asian people do: no covering up of facial orifices, no turning away, just open-mouthed “ha-chaah”. and out of his nose? mouth? springs a bottle of fanta. oh how i laughed.

“i must have one of those, ” i said, as two bikini-clad girls popped out of a plastic orange and a plastic ice-cream cone-cup, chirping “it’s fruity! and creamy”.

and it really is. advertising has never been so truthful.