Coca-Cola apologises after customer finds 'YOU RETARD' printed inside bottle cap

mail online ^ | Helen Collis

[Morgana]

Drinks giant Coca-Cola has apologised to a family after it found 'You Retard' printed inside a bottle cap.

Blake Loates, from Alberta, Canada, was shocked to read the insulting profanity as she drank from the low-calorie fruit drink.

'We immediately thought, you have got to be kidding me?' she told the Huffington Post Alberta.

'We thought it might been a disgruntled employee or someone in a (bottling) plant playing a joke,' she added.

Appalled, she took a photo of the lid and its printed insult and sent it to her father, Doug Loates, who immediately penned a letter to the mega-firm.

In the letter, seen by the Huffington Post, he told the company, '... the "R" word is considered a swear word in our family. We don't use it. We don't tolerate others using it around us. We ARE over-sensitive but you would be too if you had Fiona for a daughter!'

He explained that he has two young daughters, both born premature and consequently suffer disabilities, and two older daughters, including Blake, from his first marriage.

He says through his daughters he has leaned to 'give', 'care' and 'enjoy small miracles'.

[prof.h.mandingo]

The real reason for the bottle cap mix-up was it was supposed to be sent to the White House. Mix-up in distribution network. It was a fruit drink after all.

[Vermont Lt]

Its not soda. Its flavored water. And not that tasty at all.

[Vermont Lt]

Its not like it said, “YOU F****g Retard.”

That would be profanity.

[Vermont Lt]

Evidently the capping machines are printing on English Word and one French word.

Randomly printed, so the chances of this happening are (1/Total English Words)*(1/ Total French words).

In other words, it is possible, but rare. If you are talking millions of bottles it WILL happen. But picking it out of the blue would be very rare.

Now, cross that with the chances of the bottles hitting a family with two special needs kids....that’s lottery ticket rare.

Even if you had someone fooling around with the system and printing thousands of these particular caps, the chances of being bought, randomly, by a family with two special needs kids..its astronomical.

Either God is out to screw Coca-Cola....or this family is a specific target...or this guy has a cap printing machine in his basement and he is looking to make a profit. (The last option is absurd...but within the realm of probabilities.)

[BykrBayb]

Now that I’ve read a post from each of you two, I’m satisfied there is still decency here. I don’t need to sift through any more obnoxious posts in search of somebody who gets it. Thank you!

[Sacajaweau]

It’s a word...It means a kid needs special help....and nothing more. It is neither derogatory or unkind...it is truth. This PC cr** is a waste of every ones time.

[cuban leaf]

Some uses are harmless and some are intended to insult or degrade.

---

I’ve never owned a bitch because all my dogs have been males.

[Theodore R.]

Maybe the person who put the message in the bottle cap was disenchanted with the American voting public. At least to his benefit, I presume, they won’t be able to track the miscreant down.

[Blood of Tyrants]

And she is soooo upset that only a tidy sum of money will soothe her jangled nerves.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I thought Coca Cola meant You Retard in Chinese?

[infowarrior]

Gone are the days of “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”

Thanks to the perpetual grievance-mongers, the new, *improved* version is 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me rich'...

the infowarrior

[CatherineofAragon]

"the "R" word is considered a swear word in our family. We don't use it. We don't tolerate others using it around us. We ARE over-sensitive but you would be too if you had Fiona for a daughter!'"

Well, maybe I don't like the word "jerk." I can decide to consider it profanity, but it will not BE that. Personal dislikes cannot randomly re-define words.

Also, the outrage, the sense of being "appalled", is just too, too dramatic. My husband's aunt is mentally retarded. No one in the family has a swooning spell over the "r word."

[Kirkwood]

Idiot was once used purely as a clinical term that became an insult later in the 20th century. No one today uses it in the context of a clinical definition, except maybe in an historical context. The word retard or retarded has also pretty much dropped entirely out of clinical use and is now consided an insult. For those of us who lived during this transition period, there is a lot of sensitivity about the word. The sensitivity with using the word idiot has all but vanished.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Huffington Post: The preferred medium for thin-skinned whiners.

[Raycpa]

heretic, this is FR and thats just not done here.

Please don't report me. It was a momentary lapse of judgement.