why, oh why can't my dream come true.

I hate that just about every celebrity ever promotes this stuff. Especially Madonna, she scares me (okay okay... I'll admit, I fuckin' love her music circa 1998). Product endorsements = kinda uncool.

Honestly, my favorite is O.N.E.

Best. Shit. EVARRRRR.

But... (and this is a really tragic thing) I'm a poor student. Price matters. A lot. Vita Coco has been winning my hard earned dollars on cost competitiveness alone (you really can't blame me, 10 cents and ounce is kind of out of this world). I was pretty excited coming home from work knowing that my 12-pack package of Vita Coco coconut water was being delivered today. I checked the tracking before I left work... "out for delivery." I drove the 2.5 miles home and ran up the seven steps to my doorway expecting a package... no package. I figured our UPS guy was having one of those super late days and I resigned myself to having to wait until 5pm. I stepped out on the balcony, watered my plants, and walked back to the door hoping that the UPS guy was hiding around the corner with a smile on his face and an Amazon.com box between his hands. No dice.

But I did stub my fuckin toe... on an Amazon.com box.

It's mother fuckin' Christmas when one of these land on your doorstep.

Unless I'm on my deathbed, it's never acceptable to drink warm coconut water. In fact, if I was dying and the only thing that could save me was warm coconut water, I might just be like, "Thanks, but that shit's gross. I'll take the eternal nap instead." I cut open the box as fast as I could to find another box nested inside. I cut that bitch open, too. I was expecting a glorious grid of coconut water cartons lit up by warm, inviting halos of happiness. Instead, my box contained 11/12ths of that image.

Umm... WTF is this shit?

Let me reiterate... 11/12ths. I don't know math, but... that's like, practically failing. One of my cartons was puffy and bloated and didn't sit flat in the box like its eleven perfect siblings. I had a bad feeling about this little guy so I immediately popped open the Tetra Pak and took a zip.

I would much rather scrub dead skin off my boyfriend's foot and cook it in a soup to make foot flavored broth than to have to take another sip from that bastard carton. ABOMINATION. I thought maybe it was because of the temperature (unlikely... we reached a high of 88 today) so I popped it in the fridge hoping the taste would revert to deliciousness. It didn't.

I stewed over this for a few hours, not sure if it was worth it to go through the trouble of contacting the company over 11.1 ounces of what was probably a bad batch, and then I remembered that the only reason I bought this brand instead of my favorite was because of the price. Removing one carton would tank the price per ounce thus removing all incentive I had for purchasing this brand to begin with. The way I see it, if I have to pay full price then I better get exactly what I want. And this shipment... just not doing it for me. Boyfriend convinced me to send an email to the company, which I did. I kept it short and tasteful, because in all honesty this probably won't be the last time I'll ever buy Vita Coco, but I also need to know that I'm not going to be consistently throwing away 1/12th of my money on shitty product.

I did a quick Google search and found that another Amazon customer had an issue very similar to mine, and Vita Coco swiftly responded by mailing that person a free 12 pack of a variety of their flavors. Really, I'd be happy with a voucher for a free 33 ounce carton for my troubles, but if they decide to follow up with a free 12 pack with a variety of flavors I will certainly reconsider my coconut water brand loyalty.

I'll keep you posted.