Things go better with....How's that song go?

The Coca-Cola Company is now including excerpts from new books by authors such as Elmore Leonard in 12-packs of their products. We here at Country Musings applaud this literary lagniappe, but wish they had put a little more thought into it.

Instead of just random insertions, why not give Diet Coke drinkers a copy of Stephen King's "Thinner"? Mountain Dew drinkers might prefer "Alive!", "The Eiger Sanction" or some other Alpine epic. And how about a Tolkienesque elfin-fantasy type thing in Sprite?

If this promotion is successful, we can expect manufacturers to include more freebies in their wares - maybe even C&W tapes and CD singles.

Wouldn't it be great if you got a copy of "Dust on the Bottle" with a purchase of Windex? Or "It'll Take Dying to Get it Done" with Miss Clairol? If Marlboro gave away "I Should Have Been a Cowboy" with every carton, their sales would go through the roof. (By the way, did you know Marlboros were originally marketed as a woman's cigarette? That has nothing to do with the subject at hand, just a bit of trivia for you to put in your pipe and smoke.)

If you think about it, there's really no industry that couldn't benefit from this free country music promotion. Ex-Lax could really get things going with a copy of Alabama's "I'm in a Hurry to Get Things Done" in every package. And can you just imagine how the Playtex Living Bra could lift its sagging sales by including a tape of George Strait doing "I Cross My Heart."

And then maybe we consumers can get in on the fun. I know I'd like to send all those 10-10-321 and 1-Adam12-867-5309 long distance pushers a copy of Travis Tritt's "Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares."