One day early in 2018, the Mermaid was out for a stroll on the shores of Lake Geneva, gazing at the Alps. She knew better than to cross over to the French side, where the wily sorceress Evian dwelt, sucking up pure water from the rocks. She was with her boyfriend, after all, a local kid from Vevey, very Swiss and proper. A rich kid, sure, but our Mermaid wasn't worried.
The boyfriend had something like three percent of the US coffee market, most of it powdered instant stuff, and the Mermaid knew she had five times as big a share. The leaders didn't count; Smucker's Dunkin Donuts was the biggest dog, but a dog nonetheless. Her old boyfriend Peet, he was with the number two outfit now, JAB; so was Keurig, both gone over to the Germans.
And then, out of nowhere, the Mermaid's boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed!
"Come with me," he implored. "Here, here's seven billion simoleons."
"I will not sell my virtue for any amount of cash!" she protested, "not even seven billion simoleons."
Then the boyfriend, who was a shrewd negotiator (that's how he'd got so rich), said, "Well, what if instead of getting totally married, you only let me nibble on your sweet, sweet..."
"Never!" she cried. "And certainly not for seven billion simoleons!"
"Let me finish," replied her suitor, who went by many names, although she knew him as Ness. "I was going to say 7.1 billion, not just seven. And I only want the stuff you already sell in packages. I'll sell it for you around the world, and you'll be famous."
And the Mermaid smiled her sweet, inscrutable smile, and said, "Okay, Ness. But I get to keep Pumpkin Spice."
"Sure, sweetheart," he said, And he pulled the 7.1 billion simoleons out of his pocket as if it were dryer lint.
When the deal closed, six months later, the Mermaid had gone back to Seattle for the annual Pumpkin Spice festival. And in Vevey, her suitor rubbed his hands gleefully. "Don't ever say Nestlé isn't one smart cookie."
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