Mirinda

In early 1990 my family passed through Kuwait on a flight to Singapore. The plane was stopped over, so we went out in to the airport to have a snack. The pop cans were all thin and had neat arabic lettering on one side and english on the other. My sister got a pepsi, but I, wanting an elite souvenir, got a mirinda strawberry soda, thinking it some native kuweiti drink, since they don't have mirinda in Canada, though in retrospect the english writing on the can should have been a give-away. It was sickly sweet so I drank about half and carefully poured out half in the garbage bin and packed the can in my things. It got a little crunched up in our subsequent travels, but I have it still and keep fake flowers in it, arabic side facing out. I found out today that it's just a pepsi brand, but oh well, it's still neat. I sometimes feel almost like it's a orphan pop can, rescued by the winds of fate (me!) from a fiery death in the gulf war a year later. I don't remember any other airports except amsterdam's, where we started our trip, but the dinky soda stand in Kuweit is burned in my mind. I wonder if it's still there? What happened to that late night clerk? Is he okay after all the turmoil that must have enveloped that airport in 1991? I'll say this for travel: it's always touching, and always from an unexpected avenue.