You have to know me well to understand the sadness associated with this narrative. It all goes back when I was small, sweet child. My parents being the thrifty and conscientious types never lets their children have steady meals of McDonald's or other local fast food joints. The one indulgence was a pizza dinner from Shakey's once ever month or so. What came with this fabulous dinner was the universal greasy pizza chaser, 7-Up. "Pop" as my parents called it. I called it gold. I loved to savor the bubbly clearness as it washed over my tongue and tickled my throat on its final journey. If you are thinking I never really had much soda in my young life, and you are quite right.
It was not until I hit high school and had to wander the halls of East High with my little group of wanderers that I found my true love. The story of what and why we wandered is fodder for another tale, but sufficed to say, I had to keep hydrated on these 40-minute jaunts. The popular beverage of choice was of course Coke Classic. Most of you can remember when Coke made the mistake of making a NEW Coke for the NEW generation to compete with Pepsi, however in their misguided attempts to win the youth over, they eventually realized they needed to cater to their existing client base. They brought back the "classic" flavor, or so they said. Everyone knew by then that the original recipe had been lost in European back packing tour and had to be reinvented. With this new invention came the throng of people who decided they hated Coke, and I would be one of them. I found a more wondrous and glorious bubbly flavor to dance on my tastes buds; Dr Pepper. It was the nectar of the gods, the water of life, the best damn carbonated beverage ever available! Thus began my love affair with the beverage established in 1885 as "King of Beverages"…
I left high school and started a family, and found that with every Taco Bell craving my pregnancies could muster seemed to involve my very own large cup of Dr Pepper! Imagine my happiness as I lay in bed at night after a filling burrito meal and having an in-utero child play a one-person soccer game with my liver as a goal post. I suppose the burst of caffeine may have affected a child or two, but most of the time the weirdness is associated with the maternal side of the family.
As you can picture, by the time I truly became addicted I was downing cans of the "good stuff" like it was going out of style. I would often find a can sitting on my computer desk where I was just sitting with nearly ¼ of soda left, and a new can in my hand. To my defense I have never been much of a coffee drinker and everyone knows you need caffeine to function in any sense nowadays.
Knowing that I was consuming copious amounts of calories every day, I had decided to switch to diet drinks, and anyone who has done the same thing knows that once you go diet, you can't go back.
For those of you wondering where the sadness of my story comes from, it is the simple fact that I had decided to stop drinking any and all soda on Friday, January 12th I just wanted to see if I could do it really, it was more of a trifle than anything. I did extremely well until the night of January 15th. On that fateful night, I decided I was behaving extremely well and had not had one soda for 3 whole days! Hearing the air rush out of my cold can of Diet Dr Pepper, I began to salivate. I lifted the lip of the chilled aluminum to my mouth and savored the artificially sweet, peppery goodness as it washed over my parched mouth. Surprisingly I drank this can with slow deliberation, trying to relish it's bubbly goodness. Then, much to my chagrin my stomach began to feel rather perturb. It took 2 more sips of my life's blood to realize, it was my favored soda, my dearest Dr Pepper. My stomach could not handle the phosphoric acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate or phenylketonurics! I was understandably worried. I had but one small hope this might be a small set back or just a fluke, so the next night, I tried another can. You can only imagine the screams that came from my home that night, I am sure that is why the neighborhood was cased by cops for the better part of the evening.
Do you think I would let just 2 nights of testing my theory be the defining proof I needed to tell myself I could not plan on drinking anymore of my beloved soda without suffering dire consequence? See, you all who said no, know me just a little too well. I'm scared of you now and please leave my page and quit stalking me, m'kay? Back to my narrative; I have since tried ONE more can, but sadly I believe my body has won and will not let me put such unnatural substances in it. It is a shame, but I am sure that the Nestle Instant Iced Tea guys are waiting for the stocks to jump. I plan on spending the rest of my life drinking iced tea… take this as insider trading information and make yourself a few million bucks at my expense.
This was originally written January 17, 2007
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