This is what you call hard-knuckled competition:
The long-standing rivalry between Coke and Pepsi took a physical turn Friday when a Pepsi deliveryman allegedly punched his Coke counterpart in the face at a western Pennsylvania Wal-Mart, state police said.
Pepsi’s new marketing slogan is reportedly “More Happy” — but this doesn’t seem to be a very good start, giving the competition the finger (plus a few other fingers and a wrist along with it). More on the Pepsiman who couldn’t bottle up his anger:
The two deliverymen were “apparently bickering back and forth” while unloading their wares at the Indiana County store, police said. When the Coke deliveryman left the store, his counterpart allegedly punched him in the face three times, breaking his nose and giving him a black eye, police said.
No charges have been filed, but police characterized the incident as a misdemeanor simple assault.
In other words, in legal terms, the case will fizzle.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.