Orange Julius Appreciation Thread

Back home in Vermont, we don't have a lot of stuff you city-folk take for granted. For example, there's no 7-11s in Vermont, they're finally building our first IHOP and I have never stepped inside a Target. To make things worse, usually, all the cool stuff that we do manage to get usually closes and something horribly lame opens in its place. Case in point, in our local mall (called the "U-Mall" by us Burlingtonites) there was an A&W in the food court. It was cool. About a few years ago, it closed and they opened up a Quiznos. That wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't a Subway a few yards away.

Anyway, to get to my point, the second day that I was in Albany, I went to the Crossgates Mall. Because this mall is bigger than my neighborhood, I was amazed by all the stores they've managed to put in this mall. There's three different Journey's (regular, for kids, and some sort of weird new-age, expensive, designer Journeys store... just in case you want some Chuck Taylors with abstract art, I guess), two Lids, a Best Buy, a Friendly's etc. etc.

Then I saw it. It's neon sign glowing in the distance. One I haven't seen since I was a wee child.

Orange Julius.

While I was still recovering from the shock of seeing an Orange Julius, I continued wandering around the mall... and then I saw the sign again... coupled with a Dairy Queen.

My mind was blown. Dairy Queen is my favorite burger joint and to see it with Orange Julius. Holy shit.

A long, long, long time ago, the other mall in Vermont (called the "Downtown Mall" by us Burlingtonites) had an Orange Julius. But then, this mall sort of went down the shitter and really blew for a bit until they decided to close it for a bit and revamp everything. When it finally reopened, it still sucked... but it was better than it was. But unfortunately, whoever was in charge decided that this mall was only going to have two stores in it's food court. A pizza place that was there since the old mall, and a standard mall-fare Chinese place. The Orange Julius? Gone. A giant wall in it's place.

Unfortunately, I did not have enough money to relive my childhood memories that day. As I walked away, I looked back and said to the Orange Julius "Next time, next time..."

And that brings us to this afternoon.

Because my roommate was still sleeping and the room smelled like ass, I decided to venture back down to Crossgates Mall and finally get my beloved Orange Julius. I went to the straight-up Orange Julius location and not the OJ/DQ combo. As I looked at the menu, I noticed all the different crap you can put in it. Blasphamy. It's called Orange Julius not Raspberry-Banana-Fusion-Candy Julius. I asked for a small, which came out to roughly three bucks. I handed the cashier my money and a straw, and she gave me a cup full of orangey goodness. I took my first sip of an Orange Julius in over 10 years.

Instantly, I was brought back to my childhood. I was in the old mall with my mother, eating a Lemon-Poppyseed muffin top and drinking an Orange Julius as I so often did when my mom brought me shopping with her when I was too young to stay at home by myself (this had to be before I was in 3rd Grade). I was in Orange and Creme heaven. No frozen drink will ever be as good as an Orange Julius. Slush Puppies? Yeah right. Icees? Dream on. They don't have SHIT on Orange Julius. It was so good, I almost didn't mind the person who was coughing TB on the back of my neck on the bus.

Unforutnately, the dream was over. I sucked the cup so clean, that I probably could have gone back and given it back to the cashier to use again. I bid adieu to the cup in the trash knowing fully that we'd meet again soon.

BONUS: As I was writing this article and thinking about the old mall. I almost perfectly remember going to the video game store there with my dad and buying Donkey Kong Country 2 for the SNES for my mom's birthday. Yup. That's my family for you.

Sadly, that video game store left before the renovation, and is now a Claire's or something. When the mall reopened, they gave us the world's smallest EB Games. Seriously, it's like the size of a phone booth. All the games are put side-by-side and cover the whole wall. It's a little ridiculous.