I'd like the world to buy me a Coke

I am not an emotional eater.  Quite the opposite, in fact: whenever I feel upset, my (fortunately) limited body issues are the first guests to show up at my pity party, and they’re rude and loud and shout things in my mind like “Oh you’re sad about that silly thing?  Well you should really be sad about the cellulite on your upper thighs.  No ice cream for you tonight.”  If I were more depressed I’d probably be skinnier, but I’m a-ok being happy and a bit plump, thankyouverymuch.

I may not be an emotional eater, but I do have one food addiction: Soda.  Or Coke.  Or Pop.  Whatever you want to call it, all of those words make my mouth water.  I generally prefer brown or clear sodas, so I won’t do the Dew and I don’t wanna Fanta.  But my discrimination ends there.  I like Coke and Pepsi, regular and diet, Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb, and root beer and ginger ale.  My favorite drink in the world is a Coke Icee, and I’ve been known to get uncharacteristically cranky at the movie theater if they only have the stupid white cherry or blue raspberry flavors.  True connaisseurs of frozen beverages know that Coke and Red Cherry are the must-have flavors.  I guess you could say I’m an Icee purist.    

But I know soda is bad for me because it has loads of tasty, tasty sugar in it.  So I’ve tried to give it up at least three times before, but the thirst-quenching brown bubbly potions have always drawn me right back in a few days later.  Next thing I know I’m cooing at the Coca-Cola polar bears playing with penguins and smiling at the throw-back Pepsi cans.  I fall for the soda marketing as much as the product itself.  So sign me up for Intervention because I am a full blown soda addict.

Kind of.

Let me qualify my addiction.  I’m not like that guy on Dr. Oz who drinks 14 liters of soda a day.  Hand to the Bible, I don’t even drink soda every day because we purposefully don’t keep it in our house.  But like any good addict, whenever I have access to it I order it almost every time.  This generally means I order soda when I’m eating out.  At restaurants I’ve even convinced myself that I’m insulting the waiter if I just order water - that he/she will be upset to not have the extra $2 tippable dollars on the bill.  Some people enhance their meals with wine; I enhance mine with Coke.  It’s like my meals are symphonies and Coke is the percussion.  Sure you can have a fine concert without it, but we all know it wouldn’t be the same.  

But, folks, my addiction hit a new low last week.  Somebody knocked over my to-go cup of Coke, and I reacted like a drug addict whose lines of white powder just got blown into the carpet by the high-speed ceiling fan.  And all my soda-starved frustrations were all directed at this guy:

Yes, I got really upset with my dear puppy Teddy who got neutered on Wednesday and has since become a destructive beast lumbering into walls and end-tables with his nearly two-foot-in-diameter cone of shame. One of the cone-victims was my Coke, and I reacted like Gollum losing his soda Ring.  Mourning the loss of my sugary Precious to the irrevocable fibers of our living room rug, I dove head first into a the fires of soda-addicted desperation, and I started whining with a ferocity that would make any three-year old proud.

So maybe it’s time for me to turn in my membership at the Soda Pop Club.  I probably shouldn’t love any food as much as I love soda.  Maybe I’ll give it up... tomorrow.