Soda Pop and me

A friend just got a very nice surprise at work and wanted to celebrate. After class I met her and we went to see Guess Who. In many ways it is not a great movie but in other ways it should be almost required viewing for many people. I think my favorite line was uttered by one of the daughters..."You taught us to see people, not color." I gathered it was a remake of the flick Guess Who's Coming to Dinner early on...it was pretty well done and I should really write on it while it is fresh in my mind. However, something more important happened tonight.
It is indeed a sad day in the life of Drew. Tragedy has struck. It is almost too horrible to speak of...yet I must. It is too important not to mention. While at the movie an event occurred that it seemed would never, ever happen.
I remember being so poor growing up that we got exactly one bottle of coke per month. Yes, it was in a bottle. I feel old saying, "I am old enough to remember when coke was in bottles and we got 10 cents deposit." Fortunately I am old, so the feeling is not a lie. *rimshot* Oh, and for those of you laughing at me right now... (_0_)
Sure, the cokes meant a lot. I hope I never forget Mom firing up the hot air popper with that little metal thing that melted the butter...I think anyone who wants to live life as a criminal is really missing out by not owning and using one of those things. There was no possible way to grab that thing while the butter was melted without burning off some of the skin on your fingers. So for those who need to change or mask their identity, all they really have to do is make popcorn in one of those things and they will find their fingerprints cannot be traced anymore.
So we would have popcorn and our bottle of coke and watch old black and white movies on our old 16mm Sears Roebuck and Company purchased film projector, laugh and have a good time. I guess I started to associate coke with good times. Probably true of a lot of people, although which coke they refer to is anybodies guess.
Once I got a job I decided I would always have soda. That is exactly what happened for years. It is kind of pathetic, really, how much soda I have consumed. Just a couple days ago someone turned in the cans I had been saving at work for about 3 or four months....and got over 11 dollars from them. That is a lot of soda.
I am a soda connoisseur. I can taste the difference between the wonderful, tasty, biting kiss of a Coca Cola (this is not a paid advertisement...) and the sticky sweet poison of Pepsi. One sip tells me of an attempted assassination by diet...I can tell the difference between Dr. Pepper and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Oh, the glorious hours I have spent with just a good book, myself, and an ice cold Mt. Dew...who loves you baby Dew?
I have sampled Root Beers from the sugary mouth assault of a Barqs to the rich, full bodied mouth pleaser of Henry Weinhards Root Beer. I usually don't root for beer but those Bud Light Bowls were just too cool. Uh-oh, did I just date myself? No, but I might tonight... *rimshot* Just kidding. Yes, I thought it was funny. Of course, I also laughed when the dog got dragged in whatever Vacation movie that was...Christmas?
I might be a millionaire if not for all the money spent on soda and not having a particularly high paying job or any appreciable talent....so you might not think my soda purchases are the main reason but they are in there. Oh, yeah, they contributed.
So at the movie tonight we do their "Commit Suicide in 2 Hours or less" deal of 2 monstrous sodas, a tub of popcorn, some Milky Way Popables and went into the movie.
It struck me there...it had been 3 days since I have had a soda. If you read my water essay you know I have been cutting back...but me going three days? I am pretty sure the Coca Cola company laid off a couple hundred people. Psychiatrists are lining up to investigate this phenomenon. Religious crackpots are forecasting Armageddon. Oddly, they are right... http://www.comicimages.com/rawdeal/resources/cardlist/armageddon.doc
So I set about to drink my soda. A mere 32 oz. That is nothing compared to the three - four 64 oz sodas I used to drink when I worked at TVBS and then the door shop. A drop in the bucket. And eventually the urinal. A mere speck of sand on the windshield of liquid.
And I discovered something. Did you know soda hurts your tongue? Yeah. The carbonation makes little bumps stick up. It is horrible. Not so much because of the tongue...more because it makes it harder to spit sunflower seeds.
Now, spitting sunflower seeds is, of course, a nasty habit. But it is necessary. I like to share my sunflower seeds with the smurfs who share their cigarette smoke with me. I think it is only fair...you give me the part of the cigarette you don't want, I give you the part of the sunflower seed I don't want. Seems fair to me.
I think the objection might have to do with the fact I only want the part of the seed that is the flavorful, salty exterior. I frequently don't even crack the shell. Sunflower seeds can carry great force when properly ejected from the interior regions of the mouth. Apparently some smokers do not find this as humorous as I do. Then aim, I don't find them sharing their cancerous malidiferous odor with me as funny as they do. So I guess we are even.
With all that said, it is a sad day. I am no longer a soda freak. Let us all join together in a mournful song of lost love and lost opportunity. I must rekindle my love of soda before my intestines totally repair themselves. Good night now.