A Deep Dive Into the Kool-Aid

Forget everything you think you know about the Kool-Aid Man.

This is gonna be a rough and sloppy article, but the people need to know. Know what?

They need to know that despite popular opinion, the Kool-Aid Man isn’t a jug. The jug is merely a vessel! The Kool-Aid Man is the Kool-Aid!

Let’s break down the facts. If the Kool-Aid Man’s mouth were a part of his jug, then it’d empty out whenever he spoke. His iconic “OH YEEEEEEEEAH” would be drowned out by a cascade of sugar and lifeblood leaving its shell.

Have we ever seen the Kool-Aid Man spill over? To a small degree, yes. He’s splished and splooshed all over children before…

…but if The Kool-Aid Man truly is just the Kool-Aid within the jug, wouldn’t this maneuver be potentially lethal for him?

Darn tootin’ it is. A small price to pay to establish dominance over the children of this realm.

The Kool-Aid Man is not the jug, but he needs the jug. Have you ever seen a puddle try to defend itself? Moreover, have you ever thrown a handful of liquid at a brick wall and expected destruction?

I’m shifting gears now. I’m talking about the jug, or as I will henceforth refer to it, the carapace.

I am not a proud man. I have made mistakes. I could have become a world-renowned glass blower, crafting windows and snow globes and those funny swirly Coke bottles you find in Mexican border towns…

…but I instead chose the path of a writer. What I’m saying is, I don’t know a whole lot about glass. Maybe there’s been some wild advancements in the glass science world, but go chuck a glass pitcher at the wall and tell me how that turns out.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Kool-Aid Man’s carapace isn’t glass at all. Who’s gonna sit there and blow a jug that big?

Don’t answer that.

The Kool-Aid Man’s carapace is just that: a carapace. He grew it organically as a defense mechanism, like the humble crab or the lowly boulder.

And it’s stronger than a crabshell! Stronger than steel! Tell me, have you ever seen the Kool-Aid Man bleed? Have you ever knelt before the glassy titan on a hot summer’s day, the sun shining through his translucent body, illuminating the life-giving sugar water within? And in those scant few moments of bliss and ecstasy, did you see naught but a scratch on his magnificent, curved form?

I thought not.

But crabs have to molt. Boulders probably do too. And one day the Kool-Aid Man will as well. One day, maybe soon, maybe far into the future, the Kool-Aid Man will shed his shell. It will not be a slow metamorphosis, like the snake emerging from her old skin. It will be spontaneous. Violent. The old carapace will erupt with the force of a long-dormant volcano. People will perish as shrapnel tears through their bodies, but they will die having seen the second Big Bang. I envy them, as those unfortunate enough to survive are doomed to continue living, every day praying that they may witness something even half as majestic.

The Kool-Aid Man is now in his most vulnerable state. He has no time to bear witness to the carnage he had wrought only seconds before. Amidst the shock of the surviving onlookers, the puddle slinks off somewhere isolated and alone. It may be months before he regrows his carapace and is whole once more.

But he will not be the same funny jug-man he was before the great molting. He will emerge larger. Stronger. A more formidable threat to dehydration the world over.

And the cycle continues.

Oh, he has big ol’ ice cubes floating around in him! I guess that’s how he regulates body temperature.

I bet that if you found the Kool-Aid Man right after he molts and chopped him in half, he wouldn’t die, but become two smaller Kool-Aid Men. Like a worm!

To the guys at Kool-Aid: I know you’re reading this. Please, for the love of God, give me a sponsorship. Or at least one of those pitchers with the Kool-Aid Man’s face on it.

Next time: I dunno. We can talk about Boo-Berry’s identity before he died.