Small Town Addict

Ok - I decided recently to quit my long long long addiction to Diet Pepsi.  The decision is fueled in part by the realization that restaurants are now charging upward of 2.00 per glass of what is essentially 10 cents worth of syrup and carbonated water.  Also propelling me down this path of carbonation abstinence is the fact that I can't remember anything these days.  I firmly believe that aspertame has some kind of....crap....what was I saying here?

And then there is the overall cost picture.  Even buying 8 packs on sale, at the rate I was consuming Diet Pepsi, I was spending nearly 800 per year on pop (soda for those of you out East - and don't look at me that way.  I am crabby as hell and have a headache).

800 per year is money that can be spent on ballet classes (for the girl, not for me, you mooyaks), or basketball shoes for the boy, or all manner of kid related items.  So I will muddle through.  But I have to warn you, I am likely to be crabby for a couple of days, weeks, months....whatever.  I feel like Dean Martin in that great John Wayne movie where he played the former deputy who was a sure shot until he gave up drinking -then he wasn't worth a damn.  Well I have an arbitration coming up on December 7 so we'll just see if a month and half off the bottle dims my wits to the point where I can't hit the broad side of an intellectual barn.

Anyhow, so I quit the stuff over the weekend and I have already cheated once.  Saturday, realizing there was no Diet Pepsi in the house, and being too lazy and too tired to go out and get some, I convinced myself over the weekend to just give it up.  And I was doing great, until dinner time last night.  The table was set, food on plates, napkins handed out and all that was left to be done before I could sit down and join the feast was to hand out beverages.

Chocolate Milk for Kristin (like me, she has her own Dark Master), water for Michael who is fit beyond actual description or comprehension, Jeanine was having iced tea - ever the lady.  And for me - there had to be something in that fridge that made sense.

I shoved aside a carton of some white looking fluid, the kids put it on their cereal I think, and looked behind some juice pouches, and there, standing sentinel, was a lone diet Pepsi - in the perfect bottle size (16.9 ounces - a bottle design that allows the pop to chill to the point of becoming super cooled without freezing so that the liquid can turn to ice crystals at the exact moment it comes into contact with the air).

It stood there, mocking me, daring me, insulting the long history of my family in this country.  Well, maybe I imagined that last part, but it made it easier for me to drink it.  No way in hell I was going to put up with a punk bottle of pop in my home acting unruly toward my family. So I drank it slowly, savoring every last unhealthy drop of its burnt carmel color, its tear-inducing carbonation, the refreshing chill it brought as it traveled along behind the pizza I was eating. MMMMMM.....

But I am nonetheless committed to ending this cruel, one-way relationship.  So I did not stop at the gas station this morning and sneak one - where they are two for 2.00.  And I did not buy one in the snack shop at work to have with our Boss's day celebration - the comment "...cold water for me thank you..." drew audible gasps from my co-workers, many of whom have known me now for 10+ years. 

The result of my commitment is that the caffeine gnomes bivouacked in the front of my head are impatiently smashing their little goblets against the inside wall of my forehead, demanding that they be fed their daily fix.  And the warden of their small prison (my central nervous system) has decided to send along some Melatonin to just chill everybody out and make me want to sleep like a drugged bear fumbling to remove the dart from its ass. To top it all off, the aspartame tumor, an unruly guest ushered in by years of Diet Pepsi consumption, is rearing its ugly head in the form of a jagged headache tearing through the empty space between my ears. (I don't really have an aspartame tumor, there are just days it feels like that).

The children tell me they are proud of me for walking away from my carbonated crutch.  My wife says she will believe it when she sees it.  My doctor says the health and fitness benefits should be immediately apparent because, all kidding aside, Aspartame actually stimulates appetite and a craving for carbohydrates.  I say I am all for supporting whatever company wants to invent a "Beat Diet Pepsi addiction" patch.

So thanks for stopping by the blog today, here's hoping that your addictions are all good ones; the laughter of your children, a good story well told, random acts of kindness, or just a good TV show watched in the company of those you love.  If you are fighting a Diet Pepsi addiction, please know that you are in good company and you can drop me a line at smalltowndad@hotmail.com and commiserate all you want.  It's hard, but we can get through it together.

Dennis