the 7/11 tour

Saturday, Rhon and I were out running errands and I spotted a 7/11 gas station. “Free slurpee day!!” I remembered, so I had Rhon pull over. We grabbed our free samples and then headed over to Whole Foods to pick up a few staples. En route, we passed another 7/11 across the street from WF, but it was on the wrong side of the road.

Pulling into the Whole Foods lot, I saw we were there in time for the weekly farmer’s market, which IMHO, was rather lackluster.

I mean the vendors there were cool – there was some really pretty medieval-style jewelry and a guy selling fresh honey in several flavors I’d never even heard of (we tried every flavor and ended up buying some Tupelo Honey).

But there were maybe 15 vendors overall. It took us all of ten minutes to walk the whole market area in the parking lot.

Realizing the heat was starting to trigger some of my illness symptoms, we headed inside to the AC-confines of the store. Then I realized it was free sample day, so we took some time to cool off by trying just about every sample. In doing so, I spotted that the WF-brand cheese puffs were 2-4-1, so I splurged because the only thing better than the WF cheese puffs is when 1 bag is free. LOL And I don’t feel so guilty since it’s more natural than Cheetos, not to mention waaaayyyy less sodium (only 150mg per 2 cups of the puffs).

I also sampled some blue potato salad from the hot bar in the fresh prepared section of the store. I’d never eated a blue potato before – tasted less starchy in texture. Wasn’t a fan of the vinegrette they put in the salad, though. Too much lemon.

We left Whole Foods and this time the 7/11 was on the right side of the street, so we stopped in for another sample – and to be fair, we each tried different flavors. Ok, so that’s stretching the rules a bit for the promotion, but nowhere on the signs did it say one per person.

Then as we were driving to another place to do another errand, we passed a third 7/11, and decided to make it kind of a game. If we passed a 7/11, we had to stop and get a sample and review it. But it had to be a different flavor each time.

All in all, we passed seven 7/11’s, but one of them had decided not to participate, so we technically only had six samples. And that one was really rude about it.

Here are my ratings from favorite to least:

1] Fanta Blue Raspberry – had to go with the classic. The blue tongue was just a bonus. 😉
2] Fanta Pina Colada – would be even better with some vanilla rum in it, but the slurpee machines don’t serve it that way for some reason…
3] Blue Mountain Dew – kinda like if MD mated with the Fanta Blue Raspberry, but the citrus of the MD clashed just a little too much with the raspberry.
4] Strawberry-Pineapple-Lime – tart and refreshing, but I was confused because it was blue in one store, but pink in another.
5] Crystal Light Apple Mango – you could definitely tell the two flavors were in there, but it was way too sweet, which you wouldn’t think from a sugar-free flavor. In fact, I couldn’t even finish it because it was so sweet.
6] Fanta Watermelon – icky icky icky. That’s all I’ll say about it. I ended up tossing half of it.

Two more things I should note… first, it was the first time I’d had any caffeine in almost five weeks and we probably should have had something more substantial in our stomachs than the WF samples (all those chemicals do not a happy tummy make LOL). But otherwise, it was actually a fun and low cost way to spend the hot afternoon. 🙂

What can I say,…sometimes you just have to make your own entertainment.

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About zengrrl

I'm Michelle Snow, the writer and creator of Zengrrl. I write about travel, entertainment, women's issues, health, body positivity, and more, both for this blog and freelance. I have also authored/co-authored four guidebooks on Orlando and Florida. If you aren't already following me, the links are below, as well as on the top right of this page. Thanks!