Dear Coke,

I would pay a premium for your drink, if you reinstated sugar instead of using that artificial sludge and government subsidized sweetener you call corn syrup. In fact, I do. Paying almost twice as much for imported Coke from Mexico at nearby convenience stores, because it contains delicious sugar. Mmmm, real sugar.

You see, as a result of your chemical sweetener ways, your domestic concoction burns the throat. It’s like mild acid, in fact. And it has a pronounced after taste. Mexican Coke, on the other hand, goes down smooth. It tastes better. It has no after taste. Not to mention the glass bottle looks cooler.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those crazy “high fructose corn syrup will give us all cancer” types—although I avoid the stuff where I can because natural always tastes better than artificial. Plus, I like my spleen.

What’s more, you do realize that by switching to corn syrup, you divided something that was once uniting. As a result, Coke is no longer created equal. And unfortunately now, money and/or nationality can get you “a better Coke than the one the bum (American) on the corner is drinking.” (Any Warhol)

I don’t care that the Federal Government is in bed with corn farmers, making it really cheap for you to use corn sweetener over already cheap sugar. I only wish you would make a better domestic product. Make ’em like the used to, as we say.

Look, I once lived 50 miles from your Atlanta headquarters (Hi, Carrollton). I’ve drank Coke for at least 25 years, despite being unofficially prohibited from doing so by wise clergy. So hear me out: Announce the return of sugar in American Coke. As this sea change would suggest, you’ll be a hero for it. You’ll sell more Coke, enough to offset the corn subsidy. And you’ll look cooling doing it.

Obviously, I don’t have a lot of leverage here, as you still make money every time I buy Mexican Coke. And you and I both know your recipe is classic.

But I do have a voice. I do have a disposable income. And for better or your worse, I do posses some influence over people I come in contact with. All 12 of them.

In other words, don’t cross me.

Hug hug, kiss kiss, hug hug, big kiss, little hug, kiss kiss, little kiss,

Smooth Harold