There’s nothing you can teach me about 7-Eleven products that I don’t already know.
It’s not that I’m a junk food fan, it’s just that I’m extraordinarily well educated in matters pertaining to 7-Eleven’s offerings. My curriculum vitae is brief but impressive:
- Graduate, 7-Eleven University, Class of 2000
- Graduate, 7-Eleven University, Class of 2004
We’re not bragging; we’re just establishing credibility.
The convenience store chain used to hold day-long courses at various convention centers to familiarize franchise owners and managers with the stores’ products. We survived a couple of the courses, which involved eating roller food, sampling potato chips with more flavors than Baskin-Robbins and literally freezing our brain with repeated blizzards of Slurpees.
We can also tell you that today is not 7-Eleven’s birthday, even though the chain claims it is and it always celebrates the occasion on July 11 with free small Slurpees (with the handy caveat “while supplies last”).
This year, 7-Eleven figures those supplies will last long enough to give away nine million Slurpees throughout the promotion, which starts 11 a.m. Wednesday and ends at 7 p.m. all over the world, including the store’s 25 Long Beach locations.
Without exaggerating, 7-Eleven VP Raj Kapoor says, “Free Slurpee Day may be the most anticipated day of the year for millions of 7-Eleven customers and new customers alike.”
This year, the most popular day of the year for those millions of people will stretch on into the month with another week’s worth of free stuff (with required purchase). A different deal will be featured each day following Wednesday’s Slurpee giveaway — and those of us with twin degrees from the University will find some odd pairings, such as July 15, when customers buying a share-size bag of 7-Eleven Select Gummies will get a free single-size Reese’s candy.
Wednesday’s party will also feature $1 Big Bite hot dogs (introduced in 1988; that’s part of my institutional knowledge). The featured flavor of the birthday dog is The Reaper (which may be apt, but not in the way 7-Eleven would want it to be), a spicy all-beef dog topped with Carolina Reaper seasoning blend. I don’t know what that is. Might be time to go back and brush up on my education.