the soda road

I proclaimed two nights ago that I would never drink another Diet Coke.

Day 2 (and counting): the headache of agony is just about enough to kill me. I soldier on...

Here is my history with soda pop (I used to just call it pop, but now I call it soda - what a lame duck am I!):

I was born in 1979. For the next 5-7 years post birth, I used to get treated to Pepsi on rare occasions - and it was usually about the amount that could fit into a Dixie cup.

After that, soda was still saved for special occasions in my household. But maybe I was able to have an entire can of Pepsi on my tenth birthday or something.

Flash forward to high school and the first time I am exposed to soda on a daily basis - we had Pepsi vending machines. On the particularly hard days of my vanilla adolescence, I would gather sixty cents and buy a soda - Pepsi mostly, but Squirt during the spring. It was this weird thing I had. But I would cherish the soda because it was tasty and refreshing - and oh - I always bought it for my last class of the day. I was very methodical with my Pepsi, thank you.

The summer after high school, I worked in a mall that sold 64 ounces of soda for .99. I bought one of those things during every shift. A friend of mine from high school visited me one day during a lunch break and observed that I was putting on the pounds. Don't be ridiculous!, I told her. It's the overalls I'm wearing that are giving you that impression.

Really, though, it was the Pepsi.

A charming young fellow that I was dating at the time invited me to ski with him in Vail that October. He said something like, "Don't drink soda before our trip; the elevation will be extra hard on you and you're going to fart a lot." So I didn't drink any soda the week before the trip because the fart word made me embarrassed for things I hadn't even done yet. And since I was on such a good streak, I came home from Vail and remained soda free for the next SIX YEARS. Almost immediately, I lost those extra pounds I had gained and my skin cleared up, too. In this period of six years, I became a seltzer fanatic. I love sparkling waters and seltzers. I think what I really love about soda is the soda water - the bubbles. How they kind of rip down your throat? I love it.

In 2004, I had somewhat of a lapse. But first, I switched teams. No longer a Pepsi person, I became a Diet Coke fiend. A fiend! I was drinking an entire 2 liter in one day! Ewww. Something had to be done about this so I quit again. And then I started working in a library where everybody wouldn't take "I don't drink soda" for an answer and force fed me real Coke on lunch breaks - I ended up convincing myself real Coke was better for me than Diet, anyway. I put on some pounds. So I quit real Coke and went back to Diet.

I don't want to tell you how much Diet Coke I have been drinking. Admitting the total number of ounces per day is more embarrassing than farting in front of someone you are just getting to know.

Anyway, I am quitting for good because Steve and I are make a conscious effort to treat our bodies a little more like temples and a little less like Superfund sites. No more Coke products in the hizzy!

Yesterday I consumed an entire two liter of seltzer. Raspberry flavored. Mmmmm.