It’s Crystal Clear, McAllen, TX is the place to be

For those who never had the pleasure of visiting McAllen, rest assure, you are not missing much.

I went home for Thanksgiving. This was the first time in several years that I have been home for Thanksgiving. It was nice. I had a good time, for the most part. Went to the border and did some fishing and drinking. Was supposed to do a fishing photo shoot (hence the reason for being on the border fishing), but it was too overcast so we just hung out, drank and fished. Good times. I don’t know anyone in McAllen, since my parents moved while I was already in college, so it was nice to go and do something with my dad and some of his friends. The shoot was actually for a local fishing magazine my dad's friend puts out.

This is not about my trip home or my fishing trip on the Texas/Mexico border. This is about a trip to a flea market in McAllen, TX.


Now, again, I am not from McAllen. My parents moved there when my dad got a new job. So basically, when I go home, I sit around with my parents and watch tv. I don’t have any high school buddies to hang out with and I don’t really know the area that well so I don’t go anywhere by myself. Which is fine by me…for the most part. It’s nice being with my parents, but sometimes boring.

Anyway, when I got back from Mexico on Saturday (again, another story for another blog) I decided to go exploring. Truth be told, I wanted to go to a local CD store. Not like a Best Buy, more of a Ralph’s Records type place. So, I was driving around, trying to find any stores, basically getting lost, until finally I found a little flea market type place. They had records so I figured I would see what they had. Keep in mind McAllen is pretty close to the border, so there are a lot of Hispanics there; most people speak Spanish; when I go home I feel like the minority. So I was not surprised to find mainly Hispanic/Mexican/etc music.

But I did find something that tickled my fancy:


Fucking Crystal Pepsi! A six pack of it was sitting in a old fridge they have in the back of the shop. I was blown away. This stuff must be so old. I was about twelve when Crystal Pepsi came out. I remember me and my friend used to ride our bikes to Albertsons and buy so much of this stuff. From what I remember it did not taste too good, and definitely did not taste like Pepsi.

I then remembered the awesome commercials. The ones that had the "Right Now," song by Van Halen.





I wanted to buy them. I dont know if I would have tried them, but still I think it would something cool to have around. Now, they did not have a price on them so I had to ask someone. The guy running the store told me I had to buy the whole six pack (which I expected) and he told me it was $20.

Twenty fucking dollars for a six pack of Crystal Clear Pepsi!!! Are you kidding me? I mean its probably not even safe to drink anymore and he wanted twenty dollars! I could not believe it. He said it was a collectors item now and the six pack was supposedly one of the first to arrive in McAllen. Right. Even if that was true, I do not see how that would warrant charging $20 for a six pack of nearly 15=year-old soda. As much as I would have liked to have them, I could not justify paying so much. Plus, I only had $5 cash and they did not take credit cards.


On a side note, while searching YouTube for Crystal Pepsi commercials I found these, ads for "new" coke starring Bill Cosby:






Classic stuff. And to think, I just thought Bill Cosby did commercials for pudding and pudding pops.

Also, does anyone remember Max Headroom? He used to freak me the hell out. But he also did a coke commercial: