42.66 Fluid Ounces of Freedom

Another Free Slurpee Day has come and gone, and for the second year in a row, my roommate Peter and I took to the streets with visions of conquest, this time with our new roommate Kevin in tow. There are eighteen 7-Eleven stores in metropolitan Philadelphia, and we set out to suckle at the syrupy teat of each and every one of them.

Free Slurpee Day, for those not in the know, occurs every year on July 11th (7/11, get it?) at participating 7-Eleven stores, who relinquish festive 7.11 fluid ounce (.21 liter) cups to customers who wish to sample a free taste of the convenience store’s special brand of delicious frozen beverage.

We didn’t hit the road until close to 9:00 PM, so, realizing that time and topography were against us, we narrowed our route down to the seven closest stores. This of course meant that we would be neglecting eleven other stores, and we were satisfied with the serendipity of those numbers.

All but one of those seven stores sated our thirst for free flavored slush, even though a number of them were not carrying the special cups (learning from last year’s mistakes, we came prepared with our cups from the previous stores that did carry them).

Four of my six Slurpees were different varieties of the Mountain Dew flavor (including regular Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew LiveWire, Mountain Dew Pitch Black, and Darth Dew). On the two occasions that a Mountain Dew variety was not available, I opted for Tropicana Twister Grape Wild Strawberry and Hawaiian Punch Sour Apple.

Along the way, we alerted any and all passersby to the free Slurpee situation, be they on foot, on bicycle, or in motorcar, and at our final stop, we handed off our bottomless Slurpee goblets to a fresh crop of adventurers.

Many hours later, when I was able to sit still again, I was filled with sadness that it had to end. But more importantly, I was filled with 42.66 fluid ounces of free Slurpee.

Check out our Free Slurpee Day 2005 photoset on Flickr and wish you were there.