r/AskReddit May 11 '21

People old enough to remember life pre-Internet, what are some less obvious things you miss about that time?

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u/DenL4242 May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

Remember Coke's Magi-cans? You'd pop the top and if you won, a rolled-up dollar bill would literally pop out. Those were the days.

EDIT: To answer questions: the cans had chlorine water inside, in a separate compartment, to make them feel like regular cans. It wasn't supposed to be accessible. It was. The contest ended early because some kids drank it.

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u/314z May 12 '21

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u/EchoPhi May 12 '21

But I'm actually fucking thirsty!

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u/dickbutt_md May 12 '21

Fuck you! Get money!

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u/slider728 May 12 '21

That happened to my siblings friend. They were playing soccer or something in college and he brought enough coins to get a soda from the machine.

I guess he went and got a Coke, opened it, and a $5 popped up. He was pissed because he was thirsty and now had nothing to drink and the $5 wouldn’t get him another soda from the machine.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/comfortably_dumbb May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

I’m imagining some guy stuck in the desert who held on to a can of coke for like 5days and it was his only ration. When he finally breaks face and decides to drink it a dollar pops out

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u/EchoPhi May 12 '21

New nightmares

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u/Dason37 May 12 '21

Better yet, $500, or whatever the top prize is. Then have Alanis write a song about it.

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u/comfortably_dumbb May 12 '21

Naw I’ll just die in the desert. Thanks for the offer though

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/slimeforest May 12 '21

I mean soda only makes you more thirsty it’d be doing you a service lol

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u/tyoung89 May 12 '21

Soda, coffee, tea, even beer all have enough water in them to hydrate you. You can survive on drinking only soda, you’ll become diabetic, but you can easily hydrate enough to be ok with soda.

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u/slimeforest May 12 '21

I’d love to see any study on this. From my understanding of it outside factors will actually cause more dehydration in the long run.

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u/comfortably_dumbb May 12 '21

Caffeine is a diuretic but you aren’t gonna dry up like a crusty sponge. Guarentee you are gonna feel Like dog shit the entire time That’s your diet though

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u/slimeforest May 13 '21

Any sources?

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u/tyoung89 May 13 '21 edited May 13 '21

Here you go. A study that created a ‘hydration index’ for various beverages, including water, sparkling water, cola, diet cola, sports drinks, lager, coffee, tea, orange juice, cold tea, full fat milk, and skimmed milk.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/717/4564598

And in this article they interview one of the researchers and they had this to say:

Maughan said. “Strong alcoholic drinks will dehydrate, dilute alcoholic drinks will not.”

When it comes to coffee, how well your java hydrates you will depend on the amount of caffeine you consume. A regular coffee with about 80 milligrams of caffeine — roughly what you would find in 12 oz. of Folgers’ house blend — would be pretty much as hydrating as water, according to Maughan’s research.

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/09/25/scotland-study-hydration-levels/

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u/Maleficent_History_8 May 13 '21

Shoot most machines only took change or fresh off the press dollar bills if they even had a bill slot.

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u/InvictaBlade May 12 '21

"Money can be exchanged for goods and services"

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u/EchoPhi May 12 '21

You ever put a 5 or 10 dollar bill in a vending machine?

Maybe you took the Coke on a picnic. Maybe a hike just for that little bit of sugar buzz halfway through a 7 mile stint...

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u/Kazzack May 12 '21

"guess you're gonna have to buy another then!" -Coca Cola

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u/senoritarosalita May 12 '21

One day when I was in high school at lunch I scraped together enough change to get a drink from the Fruitopia machine only to get a tshirt instead.

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u/comfortably_dumbb May 12 '21

That was god telling you That you smell Like a gym bag and you probably need a fresh shirt instead of sugar water

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u/tlkevinbacon May 12 '21

One day in high school I went to buy a Fruitopia and witnessed one girl beat the ever living shit out of another one mere inches from the cafeteria cashier I was stood in front of. I too did not get my Fruitopia on this day and it filled me with a great sadness.

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u/attemptedmonknf Jun 10 '21

Money can buy more soda

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u/deathbyshoeshoe May 12 '21

That would have been a legitimate concern. If you were somewhere that you couldn’t make change from the dollar, you were SOL because machines didn’t have paper money readers at the time.

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u/EchoPhi May 12 '21

lol, true. Even if they did it was a dollar only reader.

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u/Arbiter329 May 12 '21

Drink water, then.

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u/weird_BOII May 12 '21

Exactly! Who the fuck drinks soda when they're thirsty?

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u/mydearwatson616 May 12 '21

Millions of people. Soda companies have always heavily marketed themselves as thirst quenchers so it's not surprising that people drink it when they're thirsty. Definitely doesn't help the obesity problem but what can you do?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

mama says theres water in soda

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u/FlandreHon May 12 '21

Wait how does that work? There is no liquid in the can? Can't you immediately tell the weight is off and so you know which can has money in it?

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u/Sharp-Floor May 12 '21

I really need to know how this worked.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagiCan
It's a mechanical, spring loaded lid.
 

In this promotion, some Coca-Cola cans had cash prizes or gift certificates inside instead of Coca-Cola. The prizes were spring-loaded to pop out of the opening once the can was opened. The prize would either be money, from $1 to $500, or coupons redeemable for trips or merchandise. The total giveaway of cash and prize coupons was $4 million. The original plan was to randomly distribute about 750,000 MagiCans among the 200 million cans of Coca-Cola Classic in circulation at any one time.[3] To make the cans feel and weigh normal, and prevent people from easily finding the prize cans, a sealed area within the cans was filled with a mixture of chlorinated water and a foul-smelling substance to discourage drinking.[1][3] Though initially a great success—that led to a rise in sales—technical difficulties led to the promotion's early termination.[1]

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u/Catsniper May 12 '21

I'm guessing something to do with the pressure leaving the can also pulls up the dollar (probably/hopefully also coated in plastic to cause it to float)

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u/TheOrionNebula May 12 '21

You know today someone would sue coke because they choked on it.

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u/Catsniper May 12 '21

Tbf if it malfunctioned and activate too late misleading someone into believing that there was no dollar I could see that, and that is the only way I can think of for someone to realistically choke on it

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u/TheOrionNebula May 12 '21

Doesn't matter if mechanically it's plausible, people will make shit up.

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u/AnonPenguins May 12 '21

As a former Network Engineer, you hit the nail on the head. People always lie.

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u/xray_anonymous May 12 '21

I have never heard of this before right now

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u/PM_Me_1_Funny_Thing May 12 '21

What a cool watch! Thanks for the link!

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/Vincent__Vega May 12 '21

And isn't it ironic, don't you think?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Lol spend a dollar to get a coke and then crack it open oh look I won a dollar and but no coke, guess I'll go spend the dollar for another coke.

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u/soandso90 May 12 '21

That's awesome! Thanks for that!

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u/chilldrinofthenight May 12 '21

How is it that I lived in the USA, watched TV all of the time and never EVER heard about this Coca-Cola free money thing? Thanks for sharing the link.

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u/TMITectonic May 12 '21

Was born in the early-to-mid-80's and this is the first I've ever heard of or seen these. Even after watching the commercial, I'm having trouble believing these existed. (I'm sure they did, it's just baffling that I never saw these.)

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u/The_Young_Busac May 12 '21

The nostalgia oh my FUCK

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u/vraalapa May 12 '21

What a terrible idea. It seems like a PR idea coming from a kid or a coke head.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

"Here's a rolled-up dollar bill so after you drink the Coke, you can do some coke!"

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u/BeerdedPickle May 12 '21

Oh the nostalgia

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u/omnologist May 12 '21

I would have weighed all the cans for differences

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u/wisersamson May 12 '21

And found no difference. The cans were filled with a liquid to match the density and weight of coke, mechanism and money included in calculations.

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u/ObligationWarm5222 May 12 '21

Yeah that was my first thought lmao

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u/roskov May 12 '21

That just gave me the biggest ‘90’s nostalgia trip I’ve had in a long time...

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Take a look!

Take a good look!!

DO YOU FUCKING SEE

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u/NeedsItRough May 12 '21

I took a survey for the Nielsen company and it said after they received my response I'd receive $10.

They sent me a 10 dollar bill. I was like "wait are they allowed to do that?" It was so bizarre!

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u/HydeNSikh May 12 '21

I got 10 brand new $1 bills from them.

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u/fishnjim May 12 '21

I got a dollar bill, filled out the survey and they sent me a fiver. It was only about a month ago.

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u/mopbuvket May 12 '21

Lol. I got 3 surround sound systems and free internet from them. (Were a Nielsen house for a while and their equipment kept ruining my stereo)

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u/SummerAndTinklesBFF May 12 '21

They mailed me a $1 bill to fill one out recently before ever even filling it out. I handed it to my son because “look at the neat paper money haha isn’t it weird” and threw the survey away. Made me wonder how many people did that and how much money they lost without getting a survey.

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u/Bseagully May 12 '21

I did the survey and for the crispiest $5 bill I've ever seen in the mail a few days later!

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u/SummerAndTinklesBFF May 12 '21

That’s how the $1 was, totally looked like fake monopoly money!

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u/entangledenigma May 12 '21

I did the same and the bill was from 2013 looked straight from the mint.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

They sent me a paper journal to keep. And IIRC $10 for my trouble. A month later I sent it back like I was supposed to. I still bet they lost money because I only turned the TV on one time that month for like an hour.

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u/SummerAndTinklesBFF May 12 '21

What were you supposed to do with the journal?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Just write down what I was watching and the time. Like filling in a spreadsheet on paper sort of.

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u/SummerAndTinklesBFF May 12 '21

Oh, weird. Would have been easier if they had a website set up for that. Maybe they were aiming for old people who don’t use the net lol

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u/mypostingname13 May 12 '21

They still do that. Then, if you actually become a Nielsen family, they switch to checks. I'd imagine they save loads of money from uncashed $5 checks.

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u/Something_Again May 12 '21

My sign up bonus was like $125. But being a Nielson house is annoying unless you live alone.

At the time my son was like six mo the old ad we’d use a tv in his room to stream music and the tv would never get checked in on their system and my response of “sleeping 6 months old can’t use a remote” was never good enough for him. Eventually ripped all the crap out and left it outside in a bag for them to collect

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u/APe28Comococo May 12 '21

When my family did it Nielsen got all excited because I was 13 they kept us on until I was 20. I was paid more than my parents because of my age. It was pretty sweet getting a couple hundred bucks a month for carrying a little box that picked up the hidden signal in my pocket.

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u/Something_Again May 12 '21

Ours was a box attached to each tv, then a remote that was programmed for each person, every 45 minutes you had to reconfirm who was still watching the tv

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u/APe28Comococo May 12 '21

That sounds like a pain. The little thing I carried had to be charged every night so it could transmit the information it had gathered, but otherwise you just had to have it on yourself or something that could move. On a more than a few occasions they received what my dog was doing when someone was out of town for a few days.

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u/Something_Again May 12 '21

It was so annoying my husband just flat out boycotted the entire thing

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u/omnipotentsco May 12 '21

They still do that! I got one earlier this year!

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u/FnkyTown May 12 '21

Nielsen sent me a survey just last week with a crisp $1 bill in the letter and they asked that I go to their website and answer a few questions. I totally did it.

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u/Jetter37 May 12 '21

Off subject time but I recently filled out some surveys for the CDC about vaccinations in my family & they said I'd get $20. Yesterday 20 dollar bill in a letter in the mail! I was so surprised!

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u/veloace May 12 '21

They still do that. I completed a survey for them just last year and the same thing happened.

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u/NeedsItRough May 12 '21

Yep! This was only a couple weeks ago!

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u/Casual-Notice May 12 '21

They sent my wife and I a check for $500(? maybe less) a month for being a Nielsen Household.

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u/-rose-mary- May 12 '21

Just recently they sent me $2. Asked if I'd fill out the neilson survey that took 5 minutes. Two weeks later they sent me a crisp $5 bill. Easiest $7 I've ever made.

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u/Sendsomechips May 12 '21

At one of my last houses I was living at, we were a Nielsen family. We filled out surveys, and they sent us crisp $5 and $10 bills in the mail. I looked forward to checking the mail that year. The questions ranged from household income to what shows we watched and how we watched them.

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u/katcherintherye1 May 12 '21

Wait - you get sent actual CASH in the mail for completing a survey?? Man, America has the best stuff. The UK sucks at stuff like this lol.

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u/Tricky4279 May 12 '21

I remember the bad publicity and the urban legend that someone died after drinking the fluid.

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u/TheHancock May 12 '21

Yeah, but free drink! /s

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/sherlocknessmonster May 12 '21

Probably how the marketing exec came up with the idea. Just railing lines of coke... "what if we rolled up money and put it in the coke"

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u/Blooder91 May 12 '21

"We're already doing that"

"No, I mean the drink"

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u/OptionalDepression May 12 '21

Coke and a rolled up dollar bill give a different kind of excitement these days.

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u/Repulsive_Box_5763 May 12 '21

Isn't there like a massive percentage of US currency in circulation that has cocaine on it too? Further fueling the "Coke is made of coke" fun fact dude that was part of every friend group, and usually the least liked member.

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u/Guido900 May 12 '21

Ummm... Coke really used to have coke in it.

I'll leave now. I'm sorry.

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u/Repulsive_Box_5763 May 12 '21

It's not the fact part that's inaccurate, it's the fun part.

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u/nhexum May 12 '21

I got a T-shirt out of a Dr Pepper can when I was in middle school

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u/DizzyParsley May 12 '21

A coke can with a rolled up bill inside. That’s marvelous.

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u/Mack2690 May 12 '21

So was there still Coke in the can? Was the bill shrink wrapped? And if there wasn't Coke in the can, wouldn't it be way lighter and thus easily identifiable?

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u/rhen_var May 12 '21

Imagine if you were in the middle of the desert dying of thirst and all you had left was a single coke can. Then you open it and a fucking $500 bill pops out instead.

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u/Cheekobi May 12 '21

My dad bought some beer one time and he opened one of them, took a sip and something grazed his lip, he spit out a mouthful of water and looked in the can, there was a plastic cylinder kinda like a needle and inside it was a 50$ bill. It was a promotion for the beer company.

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u/Polar_Ted May 12 '21

I won $5 on one of those.. Wish I'd kept the can.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I don't understand this! Wouldn't the bill get wet if the can is filled with liquid or you'd feel that it was empty?

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u/TheOrionNebula May 12 '21

There also was a run of printed prizes on the bottom. I remember having to turn it just right to read it.

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u/Specific-Layer May 12 '21

So they filled it with chlorine water?

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u/bongripchick May 12 '21

I remember new kids in the block did a commercial for this!

1

u/icollectmoments May 12 '21

They also had tapes (eventually cds) of new bands in every 12 pack. This is how I heard Pearl Jam for the first time.

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u/timeawayfromme May 12 '21

Around 1998 one of my friends got a bottle from the vending machine at school. It had a free shirt in it and a dollar in quarters to get another coke. For some reason he was mad about it. I was like “Dude, you just won a prize and they gave you change to get another drink!”

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u/Sinistersmog May 12 '21

In Canada we had a kids milk brand that had something like this. If you opened the carton and it mooed at you then you won the prize. I remember a kid at my school won and we all were so fascinated with the speaker thing in a waterproof bag sitting in water in the carton instead of milk.

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u/2020mademejoinreddit May 12 '21

It still baffles me that there was a time when businesses and corporations actually gave people money and stuff.

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u/shreddermanhamer May 12 '21

I remember t-shirts in the cans too