Mice No Match for Mountain Dew
EmailImagine this new ad campaign: How strong is your Mountain Dew? Powerful enough to dissolve a rodent! Not exactly Madison Avenue material, but that is exactly what Pepsi — the manufacturer of Mountain Dew — claims in an Illinois lawsuit.
In 2009, oil company worker Ronald Ball said he opened a Mountain Dew from his firm’s vending machine only to gag on a dead mouse inside. His attorney told ABC News that Ball stuck the mouse in a Styrofoam cup and displayed it to his co-workers. “He immediately called Pepsi,” said attorney Samantha Unsell, so the company could stop production on the assembly line that allegedly snagged a mouse. She said a Pepsi representative came to collect the dead mouse. But the evidence had apparently since been destroyed.
Later, Ball sued the soft drink company, seeking damages in excess of $50,000. Now as it seeks to dismiss the lawsuit, Pepsi argued Ball couldn’t possibly have gagged on a mouse because Mountain Dew’s powerful ingredients would have dissolved the rodent’s body before the can ever reached the vending machine. By then, Pepsi’s experts insisted, it would have become “a jelly-like substance.” In other words, mouse jam in a can. Yum! (If you bought six, would that be a “rat-pack?”)
Ball’s attorney is not impressed, calling Pepsi’s legal motion “a poor dissent.” Said Unsell: “It doesn’t say a lot about their product.” Pepsi’s attorney on the case politely declined our request for comment. No trial date has been set. Mountain Dew already enjoyed a reputation for its high-octane caffeine content. Now, Pepsi confirmed, it’s stronger than you ever imagined.
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He should not have given them the mouse. Of course they are going to destroy it. He should have given it to his attorney straight away. Also, I believe all soft drinks have “expire on” dates. The cans are not supposed to be sold indefinitely. It the mouse was canned and then sent straight to the vendor (to ensure freshness), it would not have had time to dissolve and/or become jelly. Pepsi will say he should have known something was wrong (as I’m sure the can weighed more with the mouse in it) and he should not have open it and drank from it.
Posted by: Denese | January 3, 2012, 7:11 pm 7:11 pm
Yummy!
Posted by: Jim Bob jr. | January 3, 2012, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
Hmmm, how could a mouse pass thru the top of a can or the top of one of their bottles? In fact, how would it have gotten in there to begin with?
Posted by: lexingtonlady | January 3, 2012, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm
A mouse, like most rodents, is capable of collapsing certain parts of the skeleton to fit into smaller spaces to escape from predators. This defense tactic could have been an instrument in the mouse’s attempt to enter a bottle, but a can would have lacerated and abraised it badly enough that it would have reconsidered before entering completely and becoming sealed in a fluid containing cash grab such as this. As well as “She said a Pepsi representative came to collect the dead mouse. But the evidence had apparently since been destroyed.” this statement which phrased correctly implies that the consumer, NOT PEPSICOLA, destroyed the evidence before it was collected. The statement by the man is far fetched but he may have some credit. Although, to the meme world, “pics or it didn’t happen” eh?
Posted by: Anon813 | January 4, 2012, 12:41 am 12:41 am
The can is filled with soda prior to the entire top of the can being pressed onto the already filled soda can, so it is entirely possible for a mouse ot be in the can.
Posted by: BiD | January 4, 2012, 12:45 am 12:45 am
Rat-a-DEW-y.
Posted by: joe bob | January 4, 2012, 5:03 am 5:03 am
If the mouse got in the can the mouse would not come out the hole once dead and a drink was poured. No way.
Posted by: lexingtonlady | January 4, 2012, 6:30 am 6:30 am
“He should not have given them the mouse. Of course they are going to destroy it.”
Try reading it again: “…a Pepsi representative came to collect the dead mouse. But the evidence had apparently since been destroyed.”
It was BALL who destroyed the evidence, not Pepsi. No doubt because the evidence never existed and he’s just trying to make a quick buck.
Posted by: Steve | January 4, 2012, 8:57 am 8:57 am
…..The dead mouse was actually YOUR teeth! LOL @ US education.
Posted by: RP---STAR | January 4, 2012, 9:03 am 9:03 am
You’ve just made my mind up to skip breakfast. Thanks a bunch.
Posted by: howdymo1 | January 4, 2012, 9:26 am 9:26 am
Sounds like a similar scam as that woman who found a finger in her Wendy’s chili and then tried to sue and it turned out she put it in there in the first place. I always look at these kinds of stories with instant suspicion as it seems unlikely that something like this could happen. How would a mouse get in there in the first place? Sounds fishy to me.
Posted by: aTerry | January 4, 2012, 9:34 am 9:34 am
This just ruined my appetite for the WHOLE day!! I hate mice and now I will never touch a canned drink again, or maybe even a bottled one for that matter! LOL!!! GROSS!!!
Posted by: ValServ86 | January 4, 2012, 11:04 am 11:04 am
True or not, this story has put me off my breakfast, lunch and possibly dinner. Pretty sure there will be no canned sodas in my house anytime soon… which is actually a good thing now I think about it.
Posted by: GAG | January 4, 2012, 11:08 am 11:08 am
The only piece of evidence and the “victim” destroys it (?), he hit the lottery and lost the ticket. His attorney may not think much of the product but how does he intend to pursue a trial without the “corpus delicti”? I doubt the courts will think much of the case but unfortunately money will be spent having to defend and disprove what should be a case without merit.
Posted by: Give Me a Break | January 4, 2012, 11:23 am 11:23 am
Hmmm, he destroyed the evidance…you know Pepsi was going to run tests on it to see how much of the product was in the dead mouses blood stream, and lungs. He knows somc CSI type of investigation was about to ensue. They were going ot measure when that batch of soda was produced, bottled, how long those cans sat in a warehouse before being loaded onto a truck and loaded into a vending machine. Calling Pepsi to stop the assembly line was futile. That alleged batch of soda had been loooong off the line by the time he got to it.
Posted by: Thoughtyouknew | January 4, 2012, 12:00 pm 12:00 pm
The same thing happened to my aunt aoubt 20 years ago but with a SWISS MISS pudding pack. She told the company and they sent her a bunch of free coupons for pudding lol. To this day she still cannot eat pudding.
Posted by: agkm10 | January 4, 2012, 2:29 pm 2:29 pm
Not everybody is running a scam. I personally over the years have found cigarette butts in a jar of gerber strained carrots (with witnesses to this and after feeding a couple bites to the baby first) and a soggy cockroach in a can of budweiser beer (that I had to pick off my tongue). There was also a dead rat discovered in a bucket in the kitchen of a chicken wing restaurant I worked in in Port Canaveral, Florida. And a cockroach and fruit fly infestation in a Piccadilly cafeteria in Merritt Island, Florida. Not everywhere is as clean as it should be.
Posted by: Lisa | January 4, 2012, 2:42 pm 2:42 pm
Empty cans are transported upside down from the time they leave the depalletizer until just prior to filling. Once cans are right-side-up they are only a few seconds from being filled, the open tops are covered, and incidentally, are travelling at a very high rate of speed. A mouse would never make it through the filling valve into the can. Good luck to this guy, he’s going to need a good defense lawyer.
Posted by: Hoss | January 4, 2012, 3:29 pm 3:29 pm
Biological matter dissolves in water so why is dissolution in soda repugnant?
Posted by: Sky | January 4, 2012, 4:03 pm 4:03 pm
I can’t recall ever finding a mouse in a can of soda, so – ergo, soda dissolves mice.
I wonder what else they put in the can’s, I mean if a mouse gets in – I’m sure flies and whatnot must get in there from time to time, pennies, fingernails, lipstick, cellphones…
you’re really taking a chance with your sealed can beverages.
Posted by: RoboBobo | January 4, 2012, 5:08 pm 5:08 pm
A mouse will also turn to jelly if it sits in lemonade for a time, and for the same reason. The drinks are both low pH solutions (acidic). The fact that people don’t “get it” just shows the sorry state of Science Education in this country.
Posted by: Tyrone | January 4, 2012, 5:09 pm 5:09 pm
Smells like FISH.. Lost or destroyed the Evidence, the smoking Gun… This guy is too inept to open a can of commercially produce beverage. It requires dexterity of the Mind also. Yee Haaa Pepsi will prevail…
Posted by: Frank Lockhart | January 4, 2012, 7:54 pm 7:54 pm
Most any soda would dissolve a small mouse. Look at the ingredients. I have seen many men pour pepsi over their battery terminals to clear off the corrosion. We all know the stuff is bad for us and we all smell a scam like this when we see it. This guy’s prank probably went to far and he won’t back down for fear of embarrassment.
And I can see a bunch of highschool kids trying an experiment with this and trying to compare which soda dissolves a mouse faster…. Coke or Pepsi? Ha, ha!
Posted by: chris | January 4, 2012, 8:56 pm 8:56 pm
Cans do not have a lid when they are filled. They go through a seamer machine to put the lid on. It is quite possible for a mouse to crawl in and die without being detected.
Posted by: Sue | January 5, 2012, 12:51 am 12:51 am
I got a little tiny mouse in a bottle of Heineken beer one time. We all passed it around and agreed that it looked like a mouse fetus or baby mouse but it was just a glob of mouse shaped jello.
Posted by: Joanne | January 7, 2012, 5:23 pm 5:23 pm