Come see the Christus

Or, you know, the huge fat bottle of Tahitian Noni. Turns out the good people at Tahitian Noni International ("Our juice is crap but we want you to think it's the gospel!") have taken the next step and opened themselves a Visitors' Center, complete with videos and touch-screen presentations. And a cafe. Maybe our LDS visitors' centers would get more business if we had cafes.

If you don't know anything about the company, good for you. If you do, then you know what I'm talking about. My roommate worked for them so she had bottles of the juice at our house. She made me try some once when I got an "I'm getting a cold" feeling in my throat. It's this thick, purple juice that I wasn't allowed to sip or smell. I was told to just throw my head back and take a shot of it. And then maybe not breathe for a little while.

The taste left me gagging on the floor. It pretty much tastes like a guava throwing up in your mouth. But there are people who love it. They are convinced that it heals their colds, bunions, dyslexia, colon cancer, you name it. At the company headquarters they have those movie theatre drink dispensers (you know, the once that recirculate the drinks) with the stuff in it set up in the breakrooms, and people will run into the room and stick their face under the faucet and slurp it noisily. And then they don't even vomit into a trashcan afterwards, which is what I would do.

Also, don't even get me started on the whole "We have the spirit of the islands here, and we're all about the love and the family and the balanced life" mantra they plaster all over everything. I have never seen someone get worked so completely beyond all sense or reason as they did my roommate. Sure, they'd toss a Target giftcard at her every now and then, but that doesn't really help when all you want to buy with it is a carton of ice cream, a vat of Tylenol, and a blender to mix the two.

I'm just wondering if they're going to serve straight noni juice at the cafe, and how that's going to play out when you get some poor customer who thinks he has signed up for a nice smoothie or something and then gets his first taste. Let's hope they have lots of mops handy.

www.tni.com

Posted in: being a Mormon