LX49Z 3RMT2

That's what I found under my Diet Mountain Dew cap today.

Yippee, another cryptic code that I will never use.

Does anybody remember the days when you could open a pop and actually win something? You could win money, a trip, a new bike, a new car, all kinds of cool things. Of course, I personally never did win but that's not the point.

Remember looking at the inside bottom of your pop can every time you were finished drinking it? Remember looking regardless whether the side of the can said anything about a contest or not. Remember how, as you tried to get the perfect light as you peered into the inside of that can, for that one single moment there was that rush of joy and excitement. Did you see something? Wait that could have been something? Just turn the can a little more to get some better light. There it is. You can make out some words......"Please play again". Darn.

Nowadays there is no such thing. And even if there were you look inside the can and see LX49Z 3RMT2.

Soda manufacturers have gone the way of new technology. They use these codes to get you to go to their web sites and register to win prizes. By doing this they are making sure they get something out of giving you something. "Hey buddy, look at this shiny new Xbox. It could be yours. Just come over here and give me all of your info and you will have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of winning."

Boring. I don't want to go to your stupid web site. I don't want to take the 5 minutes to register and then play your dumb little game. Or worse yet, I don't wanna collect your stupid points so that maybe in 30 years when I've drank 47,000 Diet Cherry Cokes I might be able to afford that sweet Coke Fanny Pack with reflective material for jogging and headphone jack for my discman that you've been teasing me with.

I think what's even more disappointing is that cereal and candy bars have gone on the cheap as well. You rarely see a cereal box with a prize in it anymore. Most times that there is a prize featured on the box you get the cereal home only to read further and realize that you need to collect 20 box tops to redeem it.

Come on all you soda and food manufacturers, I implore you. Please bring the back the real games, the real prizes. Enough of this cryptic code nonsense on the inside of my bottle cap. I want the creativity back! I want my pop to be fun again. I want a $100 bill to jump out of my coke can like the contests from the early nineties! Those were the days! Of course some idiot woman drank the water that was left in her $100 can and the sued you, but that's not the point!