The Bottom of the Cup

I was sitting in a friend’s living room one afternoon sometime in 1993 or ‘94, and had just finished a large Coke Slurpee. As I looked at the cup, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. There was a phone number on the bottom of the cup.

Probably printed there for compliments or complaints. Could it have been printed there for unsolicited product ideas?

I suddenly had an idea.

I could picture a Slurpee machine for your house. Something you put on the counter and could have running for when you needed a cold Slurpee in the middle of the day.

That was my pitch. You wouldn’t have to go to 7-Eleven. It would just be there, whenever you wanted one. Pick a flavor, set it, and, well, you get the idea.

So I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the cup.

A very nice lady answered. I remember it as if it were yesterday. She was super polite and had a good laugh when I pitched my idea. We talked for a bit.

Eventually she asked me for my address.

I think I remember her saying, “I’m going to send you something.” She may have told me what it was. That part is fuzzy.

Then a coupon for one free Slurpee showed up in the mail.

Little did they know they’d slept on a billion-dollar idea.

In fairness to 7-Eleven, big companies often won’t listen to outside ideas at all. Hear a stranger’s pitch, ship something like it later, and the stranger can sue, so plenty of them have written policies refusing to consider anything they didn’t ask for. Which may be why my pitch got a laugh and a coupon, and not a meeting.

The corner

The 7-Eleven that Slurpee came from was in a corner strip mall in Almaden Valley, in San Jose, near a Round Table Pizza.

The Round Table is still there. The 7-Eleven isn’t.

The machine

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Somebody made it anyway.

In 2024, a company called SharkNinja put out the Ninja SLUSHi (paid link). It sits on your counter. Pour in a drink, pick a setting, and it keeps the slush going for up to twelve hours. It launched at about two hundred seventy bucks.

They announced it on July 11.

7/11. Slurpee Day.

Did SharkNinja pick that date on purpose? I’d bet you a Slurpee they did. Did anyone at 7-Eleven notice?

So there’s really only one question. Can it make a Coke Slurpee?

No. It makes a Coke slushy. The Coke goes in fizzy and comes out flat.

A real Slurpee is a frozen carbonated beverage. The machine at 7-Eleven is a pressure tank, holding the mix under CO2 so the bubbles can’t leave. The Ninja is an open bowl with a spinning auger. The bubbles leave.

Which makes me wonder. Why is there still no pressure tank for your kitchen? Too expensive? Too dangerous? Or has nobody asked?

Somebody should call the number on the bottom of a cup.

The freezer hack

In the meantime, there’s already a pressure tank in your kitchen. It comes in a twelve-pack.

Here’s the hack. Put a can of Coke in the freezer. I use Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Then you wait. Carefully.

The timing is everything. Pull it too early and you’ve got a cold Coke. Leave it too long and the can explodes, and now your freezer is full of frozen Coke.

It’s not the fizz that gets you. It’s the ice. Water expands about nine percent when it freezes, and a can has nowhere to put it.

I used to know the timing by heart. Now I forget. Call it forty-two minutes.

Set a timer.

What you want is an Icee consistency. The can does what the Ninja can’t. It keeps the bubbles in until you open it. It’s a pressure vessel.

Legal disclaimer: Try this at your own risk. The author is not responsible for exploded cans, Coke-glazed frozen peas, or the conversation with whoever else uses your freezer. Timing may vary by freezer, altitude, and how badly you want it. This is not an unsolicited product idea.

The coupon

7-Eleven did put its name on a home Slurpee maker, back in 2012. Add ice and salt, pour in soda or juice, turn the crank. About fifty bucks.

It came with a coupon for a free Slurpee.

Same prize I got for pitching it.

The loop

Here’s the part I didn’t know when I made that call.

In the late 1950s, Omar Knedlik owned a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kansas. Depending on who tells it, his soda fountain broke, or he never had one. Either way, he put bottles of Coke in the freezer.

They came out half frozen. Customers loved them. He called it the coldest drink in town.

Then he spent five years building a machine to do it on purpose. That became the Icee. In 1965, 7-Eleven licensed the machines and named theirs after the sound you make drinking one.

So the Slurpee started as a bottle of Coke in a freezer.

It never really left, either. In Thailand, street vendors spin glass bottles of Coke in a vat of salted ice water. You flip the bottle, tap it, and it turns to slush in your hand.

In 2016, vending machines selling supercooled Coke showed up in Japan. Open it, take a sip, close it, turn it upside down. Slush. Where did they put the machines?

7-Eleven. Of course it was 7-Eleven.

Did anyone in Japan ever call the number on the bottom of a cup?

That’s the loop. A freezer, then a machine, then a store, then a number on the bottom of a cup.

Then a kid in a living room called that number and asked for it back.

Where does it end up? In a freezer. A can of Diet Coke.

Have you ever pulled one out at just the right time?