If y’all haven’t seen the torment squirrel of the Ice Age movies, his name is Scrat.
Scrat’s only goal — the only thing driving his existence — was to capture and eat the first acorn he managed to locate since the Ice Age began. No shelter. No legacy. No community. Just the acorn.
From the opening moments of Ice Age, Scrat’s pursuit is established as relentless and absurdly disproportionate. He spots the acorn, locks in, and immediately triggers catastrophe. Ice cracks. Fault lines form. Continents begin to drift. The world itself seems unwilling to let this squirrel win.
And still, he persists.
Across the franchise, Scrat comes painfully close over and over again. He secures the acorn only to have it stolen by physics, gravity, rival squirrels, shifting tectonic plates, or his own misplaced confidence. When he buries it, the ground betrays him. When he clutches it, the ice breaks beneath him. When he reaches safety, something — always something — intervenes.
The joke escalates, but the pattern never changes.
Scrat doesn’t fail because he’s lazy or foolish. He fails because the universe appears to be actively testing his commitment. The acorn is never destroyed. It’s never gone. It’s always right there. Close enough to taste. Close enough to believe.
In some installments, Scrat is launched into entirely new environments — underground worlds, prehistoric jungles, even outer space — and yet the acorn follows him, hauntingly consistent. Same shape. Same shine. Same promise. No matter how far he travels, the object of his desire remains just out of reach.
And crucially:
Scrat never stops chasing.
Not after the first failure.
Not after the hundredth.
Not after the collateral damage mounts.
Because for Scrat, the chase isn’t a phase.
It’s the point.
The Mysterious Case of Martian Marketing
Almost 30 years ago, the case of the Martian lettering on a Coke bottle began.
On the final day of a FAM trip, we were handed park tickets. This was pre–California Adventure, so Disneyland was the plan. We hit all the major attractions and saved Space Mountain for last.
And that’s where the legend begins.
I could’ve sworn there was a vendor in the queue — a small cart with an air-activated mechanism that launched a Coke bottle two or three feet into the air, where a Cast Member would snatch it mid-flight and hand it off. The whole setup was disguised inside futuristic cargo containers marked with Martian-style lettering. Not English. Not anything I recognized.
We rode Space Mountain.
By the time we exited, the vendor was closed.
And I never saw the Martian Coke again.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’ve been chasing an acorn of my own for almost thirty years.
Almost three decades ago, the case of the Martian lettering on a Coke bottle began.
On the final day of a FAM trip, we were handed park tickets. This was pre–California Adventure, so Disneyland was the plan. We hit all the major attractions and saved Space Mountain for last.
And that’s where the legend begins.
I could’ve sworn there was a vendor in the queue — a small cart with an air-activated mechanism that launched a Coke bottle two or three feet into the air, where a Cast Member would snatch it mid-flight and hand it off. The whole setup was disguised inside futuristic cargo containers marked with Martian-style lettering. Not English. Not anything I recognized.
We rode Space Mountain.
By the time we exited, the vendor was closed.
And I never saw the Martian Coke again.
Martian Vendor
Fast-forward a year.
Charlene and I returned for her July birthday — her idea, naturally. She insisted we save Space Mountain for last, knowing full well it would bother me the most. When we arrived, the ride was closed. The park was shutting down.
I scanned the same space-cargo boxes with their alien script and muttered,
“All I want is that Martian Coke.”
Two Cast Members walked by — a Black guy and his red-haired supervisor.
“Anything I can do?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” I sighed.
Charlene immediately inserted herself.
“He wanted a Coke. That specific Coke from that cart.”
They exchanged a look and sprinted off to find the keys.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I muttered.
“Why not?” she said. “You said they changed the label to Martian or whatever.”
They returned slightly out of breath, unlocked the cart, and triumphantly pulled out a cold Coca-Cola like it was a prize from a quest.
I turned it over.
Standard Coke label.
Zero Martian anything.
My eyebrows must have narrated my disappointment, because the Cast Member asked,
“That’s the Coke you wanted from the cart, right, my guy?”
“Yes,” I lied. “Thank you.”
“There’s no Martian lettering on it,” Charlene blurted.
“What?” they asked — in stereo.
“I can pay for it,” I sighed.
“No, no,” they waved me off. “Keep it. Park’s closed, folks. Let’s go.”
And still —
I swear on my Eagle Scout Oath and a stack of Bibles —
There is a Martian-labeled Coke bottle out there somewhere.
Somehow.
My acorn is out there.
Disneyland in December
Shortly after school started in September, plans were already forming: Disneyland in December. Winter Break. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day.
We invited the Wildes — Arizona residents, good friends, certified fun enhancers.
During early planning, Jen did what Jen does best: future-cast.
“Mr. BAHN-yay, any must-haves? Any must-do’s while we’re in…”
I cut her off immediately.
“Light saber. At some point, I will be leaving Galaxy’s Edge with a fully functional light saber.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Ok then. Deal breaker. Team Light Saber. Anything else?”
I paused.
Should I tell her the story of the Martian Coke?
The pause was too long.
“My Love, what’s on your ever-in-motion mind?”
I sighed. FAWK IT.
“Well… there’s the matter of a Martian Coke.”
She laughed.
“Of course there is.”
After she recovered from my beverage mythology, she issued terms.
“I love Space Mountain. So we’re securing Lightning Lanes. After the light saber is handled, it’s an all-out search for your Ice-Age-Scrat-chasing-acorn Martian-lettered Coke. You decide when we call it off. Fair enough?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed without argument.
Because this time, I wasn’t chasing alone.
Atomic Habits & the Dopamine Dump
James Clear writes in Atomic Habits that dopamine isn’t released when the reward is achieved — it’s released in anticipation of the reward.
Which explains Scrat perfectly.
His dopamine spike doesn’t happen when he has the acorn. It happens when he sees it. The moment his eyes lock in, everything narrows. The chase begins. That’s the hit.
The acorn itself?
Just an object.
Every time Scrat gets close, the universe intervenes. But he never slows down. He resets instantly. Because the anticipation already paid him.
He isn’t cursed.
He’s conditioned.
And armed with that insight, I walked into Galaxy’s Edge chemically primed.
Jen spotted the first cart before I did.
“Baby! There’s a cart with alien writing.”
Sure enough — Aurebesh script. Stamped across cargo crates like intergalactic shipping containers.
It wasn’t Tomorrowland.
It wasn’t Space Mountain.
But it was real.
“Looks like she’s out of stock,” I said. “We’ve got a light saber appointment. We’ll mentally note it.”
We moved on.
But the dopamine had already hit.
Close Enough
I predicted there would be downtime later — waiting outside a souvenir shop. That would be my window.
Sure enough, later that day, I purchased a BB-8–shaped Coke stamped in Star Wars script.
Was it exactly what I saw thirty years ago?
If I’m being honest — maybe that original bottle only exists in memory.
Still.
Cold in my hand.
Alien lettering.
Familiar shape reimagined.
My Acorn
Finally, I captured my acorn. Not because it was identical. But because I stopped needing it to be.
When I finally drank it — light saber humming beside me, dressed like a relic hunter who had clearly found something — the moment wasn’t explosive.
It was quiet.
No avalanche.
No tectonic shift.
No cosmic intervention.
Just a sip.
And in that sip, something settled.
The chase that began thirty years earlier didn’t end with fireworks. It ended with acknowledgment.
The bottle in my hand wasn’t a perfect replica of the one in my memory.
It didn’t need to be. Scrat spent his existence chasing an acorn that kept escaping him. I finally held mine long enough to realize I didn’t need to keep running.
los, Fil-Am Renaissance Man 