Years ago, on one of Chris and I’s many adventures to Pop’s, we stumbled across Moxie Cherry Cola. Pop’s is a famous Route 66 attraction in Oklahoma. Their claim to fame is their selection of obscure and bizarre sodas. If I remember correctly, this trip took place before Pixar released Up and I gravitated to that particular soda because of the name. I remember holding it up for Chris and saying “I’ve got Moxie!” He chuckled and then we both bought a bottle of their Cherry Cola.

I am not, nor have every been, much of a soda drinker. For the first thirteen years of my life, soda was mostly off limits in our household and by the time I was old enough to choose for myself, I lacked an acquired taste for it. Occasionally I crave a Coke but then I’ll take two or three slurps of it and will not want any more of it. Chris and Todd were wandering Walmart right when Coke released those little cans of soda. Todd looked at them and scoffed “Who’s going to drink this tiny amount of Coke?!?!” Chris immediately replied “Cindy. Those cans were made for Cindy.” I can’t even finish one of those. About the only soda I will finish these days is a Mexican Coke and it will take me a long time to finish that bottle.

That Moxie Cherry Cola was the best cherry cola I had ever tasted and if given the opportunity, I would always have a supply of them in my fridge.

This is the thing I look for every time we wander into a specialty soda shop or candy store. I walk past all the cherry mashes and slow pokes and make a beeline for the soda isles. Then I scan them for Moxie. That first Moxie might have been my last because I have not found a cherry cola Moxie since. Soon after we saw Up, Chris made me bottle cap pin like the one Ellie gives Carl when they first meet. He used a Moxie bottle cap and it’s been pinned to whatever daily bag I’m using ever since. He was always Ellie.

On our way home from Rockaway Beach, Michael drove out of the way to take us all to Redmon’s Candy Factory and the World’s Largest Gift Shop, a warehouse filled with keychains, magnets and t-shirts. Michael and The Cabbage made it into the candy shop before me because I was outside taking pictures. By the time I made it in, they were already onto the second isle. I walked right to the sodas. Michael saw me and said “They don’t have it. I already looked.” Now he’s in on my quest for Moxie Cherry Cola. Sometimes I wonder if there’s been a role reversal. I’m no longer Carl, but maybe an Ellie.

No…I’m still a Carl. The difference is that I’ve become the version of Carl at the end of the movie. Chris will always be an Ellie.