It’s Slurpee’s 50th birthday, and to celebrate, 7-Eleven has released a slew of celebratory products, from the Birthday Cake Slurpee I bought to Birthday Cake Cappuccinos and Slurpee doodle Pop-Tarts.

Heck, I’m surprised they didn’t inject their hot dogs with Funfetti, since those same dogs have probably been rolling under that heat lamp for the past 50 years anyway.

Since I rode my bicycle to 7-Eleven in the summer heat, I wouldn’t make it home in time without a birthday puddle in my cup. So I was forced to photograph my Birthday Cake Slurpee in front of pedestrians who looked at me like an escaped zoo animal.

But most of them were capturing Pokémon with their phones anyway, so I like to think my weird photo-shoot was hidden behind a Snorlax.

My first Slurpee sip was more “funeral” than “birthday.” A flowing log flume of watered-down vanilla flavor cascaded through my mouth, and it was chased by a faint lemon zest. If nothing else, I give 7-Eleven’s mad food scientists credit for including a more subtle frosting note.

All debates about icing authenticity aside, the watery vanilla made an awful first impression. Iciness in a cola or fruity Slurpee is acceptable, because soda and fruit juice are things that actually occur in real life. But runny liquid vanilla paste tastes sadly unnatural, as if someone had cried all over a cake.

Maybe 7-Eleven accidentally booked “Prenuppo the Recently Divorced Clown” for Slurpee’s birthday party.

But it wasn’t all tears and tragedy, because the Slurpee actually improved as time and the laws of physics went on. Gravity sent the sweet ribbons of syrupy vanilla extract twisting to the bottom of the cup, while thermodynamics turned the slush into crystallized batter.

The increased vanilla flavor concentration made my Birthday Cake Slurpee considerably more pleasant, so I tried greedily Slurpee-ing down the remaining purée before it could metamorphose into something even more melted and sloppy.

I didn’t make it in time, though (damn you, sun!). I was soon left with a dizzyingly sweet concoction that made me grimace like the time I sipped straight from a vanilla extract bottle (damn you, tempting smell!). But all hope was not lost, because I still had reinforcements to call in.

Slurpee’s birthday celebration also includes a new Birthday Cake Doughnut, and for only 99 cents, I couldn’t resist garnishing my Slurpee and turning myself into a gawk-worthy street performer.

I’m surprised no one tossed a handful of change into my Slurpee cup.

The dry and crumbly doughnut sucks up the “juices,” and the lightly golden-sweet pastry lends a welcome, floury yellow cake flavor to a Slurpee that’s otherwise pure frosting. Meanwhile, the ring’s own caked on icing provides a buttery pop that complements the drink’s vanilla and lemon combo.

This birthday is an afternoon-long affair, too. Even as I tried biking my calories off, an aftertaste of tangy vanilla custard lingered. And like any post-party funk, it was simultaneously uncomfortable, bittersweet, and a little sticky.

So while I was able to derive some enjoyment from its various ups and downs, this Birthday Cake Slurpee was just too high maintenance to ever be a repeat purchase. The Slurpee is barely worth a novelty buy, and I hope 7-Eleven tries a birthday cake milkshake for Slurpee’s 100th birthday party instead. It would be less texturally off-putting, and I likely won’t have any teeth left by then anyway.

Oh, and I hope they don’t hire that darn clown again. I think I saw the poor fella sleeping in his tiny car last night.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 fl oz – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.19
Size: Small
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Half-melted cake batter Slurpee abdomens. Spiraling vanilla tentacles. Using a doughnut like a paper umbrella. The sweet feeling of air conditioning on my vanilla-stained face.
Cons: “Crying Clown” cake flavoring. Custard hangovers. Shouting “I am not an animal!” to helpless passerby. Becoming a real life Snorlax after too many doughnuts. Frosting-filled frankfurters.

I’m an old woman, out of touch with what the kids are doing these days. I see them texting while riding their bikes and shake my head. I hear they have video games with more than eight bits – what in the world?! And the music, it all sounds like the singer is giving a robot a blowjob. I hear it’s called autotuning or something. I have a cane and a lawn, and I’m ready to shake my fist and yell at those damn meddling kids.

While much may have changed since I was a kid, I have to believe that some things remain the same. One of those things is getting on your bike and hitting the nearest convenience store with a few bucks in your pocket. I’m pretty sure every kid has stood in front of the soda or slushie machine, cup in hand, wondering what magical beverage concoction they will create next. Will it be Mr. Pibb and Squirt? Barq’s and Lipton iced tea? Coke-flavored slushie and Hawaiian Punch? Maybe it’s one of those days where you’re feeling adventurous, and everybody jumps in the pool. That last one usually ends poorly.

That said, 7-Eleven has come up with a way to capture that experience while also protecting you from the pain of poor mixing decisions. At least, that’s the idea. The Slurpee MixMaker (which I keep referring to as “MixMaster”; I think it’s a much cooler name) Cup & Straw is a fun and ingenious way to mix your flavors, or, if you’re incredibly poor at decision making, have two different drinks in the same cup! Here’s how it works:

1. Grab a Slurpee MixMaker Cup, which is made of reusable plastic and has a wall down the middle that divides the cup into two separate chambers.

2. Fill each side with whatever the heck you want. It’s called the Slurpee MixMaker, but obviously you can choose whatever cold beverage you like. I went with Fanta Wild Cherry Slurpee and Summertime Lime Slurpee, because the latter sounded like a limited edition (or at least, seasonal) flavor, and people seem to enjoy cherry limeade.

3. Pop on a disposable lid and stick your reusable MixMaker Straw through the top, so that one straw lands on either side of the wall (duh).

Let me explain how the MixMaker itself operates: the two straws meet at a central hub, out of which sprouts a small single straw that delivers flavor to your mouth. The hub is where the magic happens – that adorable little representation of a Slurpee isn’t just for show. It actually rotates to the right, offering you four options: off, 1, 2, and mix.

Smart person that I am, it took me a moment to realize that trying to drink while having it in the off position was an exercise in futility. After my puny brain realized this, I started playing with the settings. I didn’t even realize they were labeled at first; the markings are so tiny that they were easy to miss. 7-Eleven is not really to blame for that; in my rush to experiment with the MixMaker before my entire Slurpee turned to liquid sugar, I neglected to read the instructions printed on the plastic wrapper that had previously enclosed the straw. Once I took a two second glance at them, things became clear.

“1” refers to the left chamber, if you’ve got the dial facing you. In my case, 1 held Fanta Cherry. That makes 2 Summertime lime in the right chamber, with mix as, obviously, a mixture of the two.

That would be well and good and worth at least five minutes of fun, except it doesn’t quite work as advertised. There’s a little nub on the bottom of the dial that’s designed to click into a corresponding depression that determines what setting you’re on, but they’re both really small, so I had to really pay attention to feel the click that tells me it was locked into a setting.

Further complications ensued. On the mix setting, the lime side moved up the straw faster than the cherry, resulting in me having a mouthful of lime before I got any cherry, which left me with both brain and mouth freeze. This made it difficult to really taste the flavors, since my mouth was numb and somewhat painful.

Because of this problem, or perhaps because of the physics of sucking two different beverages into one straw, my lime almost immediately contaminated my cherry, traveling down straw #1 when I stopped sucking. [Insert joke about “sucking” and “my cherry” here.]

This may not have just been a mix setting problem, however. As I played around with settings 1 and 2, I noticed that no matter what, some Slurpee would get stuck in the straw, resulting in cross-contamination all-around. It was a relatively small amount with each suck, but by the time I was almost finished, both sides had an identical reddish-brown hue.

My last beef with the Slurpee MixMaker is that it has limited stirring capabilities. Even if you take off the disposable cap, the straws are rigid, which means all you can really do is move back and forth, unless you disconnect the straws separately and use them to stir. This may seem like a minor quibble, but it’s important to constantly stir your Slurpee. If you don’t believe me, just ask Ice-T about the Slushie Hustle.

I love the concept of the Slurpee MixMaker. Good for the indecisive or the adventurous, I think the idea (and the adorable tiny Slurpee dial) would be great for both kids and adults who still enjoy acting like kids. The MixMaker’s execution, however, falls rather short of its intent. The settings can be tricky to get spot-on, the mix setting results in inconsistency of Slurpee flow, and even the individual settings eventually result in cross-contamination. It’s as inevitable as you getting your peanut butter in my chocolate and a-vice-a-versa.

I’ll freely admit, some of this could have been operator error, but it’s really not that hard to use the MixMaker correctly. I could have also gotten a bum device; everyone who has written (or read, for that matter) product reviews knows that your McDonald’s experience might be different from his McDonald’s experience, or my McDonald’s experience, etc. In the end, the Slurpee MixMaker Cup and Straw is fun to play with; however, don’t go into it expecting perfect functionality.

Item: 7-Eleven Slurpee MixMaker Cup & Straw
Price: $2.49 (Straw); $2.99 (Cup) ($0.49 promo discount for the set)
Size: No info on size on the cup or 7-Eleven’s website, but looks like 20 oz. (total)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Settings are fun to play with. Knowing exactly how far away my 7-Eleven is. Adorable little Slurpee dial. Shaking my cane at meddling kids. Having two flavors in one cup (at first, at least). Ice-T losing his shit over “The Slushie Hustle”.
Cons: Inevitable liquid cross-contamination. Should have been called “MixMaster”. Settings are tricky to lock in. Possibly contracting hepatitis by not soaking first. Not easy to stir. The Slushie Hustle.