I mentioned Coke, specifically the caffeine and sugar free variety recently, and that got me reminiscing.
My grandkids don't like pop. Factually, I am the only one in my family to like the stuff. Good for all of them, and bad for me. Taste is such a variable thing. I don't know why I like what I do, nor why others don't like what I like, and vice versa, of course.
I've always liked it. My first remembered tasting is that, when I was about 5 years old, someone jettisoned a bottle of cream soda on our lawn. It was capped and unused. I brought it into mother who acted as my protective taste-tester. She affirmed the drink and let me drink the rest. What a treat!
When I was a little older, Mom and I would sometimes go for a walk on a Sunday evening when dad was at church. It seems to me that we would often pick up a bottle of Kik Cola (a local Montreal brand back then). I looked forward to that.
In high school, a friend and I would walk to the variety store almost every day after school and before the buses came to take us home. It was Coke in a bottle back then — the real thing as in the old commercials. I can still sing that commercial. (I searched for it, but I cannot find the specific version that I recall.)
It's the real thing
In the back of your mind
What you're hoping to find
Etc
At some point in time around middle age, I switched to Diet Coke and now prefer that taste to Coke Classic. I would take several cans to school (work) every day. While I could have purchased cans at school, bringing them and keeping them in our department fridge was much less expensive. I didn't drink coffee in those days, not until near the end of my career, so Coke was my source of external stimulation.
I still drink Diet Coke, usually two cans in the afternoon and perhaps a Caff in the evening.
I do know it isn't exactly a healthy drink, but there is something about how it feels on my throat that is quite wonderful, and nothing else, not even other sorts of soft drinks, feels the same. The effect on my gullet is quite wonderful.
Oddly enough, a can exploded in my little fridge just after I sat down to type this. I had run out of the drink yesterday, and nothing was cold, so I put two cans in the freezer. I set my watch to beep me after 90 minutes. When it alerted me, I reached in and took one can out. One can, not two. Oh dear!
Hence the explosion this morning (yesterday morning as you read this). I can tell you Sue is not best pleased with me, for she is the one who knows best how to clean up the mess and how to do it right while I sit here and hang my head in shame and just keep on typing my blog.
That is some sort, but not a good sort, of unfortunate synchronism — to have that explosion at the very time that I am sitting down to write this. No deity could have timed it better
When you started this conversation about sodas yesterday, I remembered my first experience drinking a soft drink...not sure which one. There was the awful experience of the carbonation going up into my nose from my mouth. Yew! But did that keep me from finishing the drink? Or continuing the love of it? Not quite as addicted as you...but I also love one a day. (Which reminds me, original Coke a Cola did have coke in it - which most everyone already knows.)
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point which I hadn't thought about. My grandparents and parents both drank pop but for their generations, it was more of a treat due to the expense of it. My generation really was the first generation where drinking pop was more of a habit than a treat. Also like you mentioned, my kids didn't pick up that habit and for that I'm glad. They never drink pop though I wouldn't have prevented it had they wanted too.
ReplyDeleteAt your age, I think things like this are just fine. You've beaten the odds so you might as well enjoy it with the years you have left. I think I'm still a bit too young to say or think that for now, so I cut my diet pop habit by switching to a healthier vice, carbonated flavored water. It doesn't have the calories, sugar or really anything other than carbonation which seems to scratch the itch that pop itches. Maybe in another decade or two, I'll pick up the pop habit again to enjoy for my remaining years... assuming it is still available for purchase.
I never encountered soda growing up aside from the very occasional Dandelion and Burdock, so the habit never took. So it's never in my house. I had a young house guest a while back, who didn't drink coffee nor tea, and I asked her what she'd like me to get in for her breakfast drink -- Coke! I was amazed but she was most appreciative.
ReplyDeleteYou're not alone, though I've tried to wean myself from the stuff in recent years. I used to be a Tab addict. Loved it. When they dropped it, I bought up every bit I could (along with Tab memorabilia, like a clock, t-shirt and drinking glass). Now I allow myself one with caff in the morning and one without caff later in the day and going the water route. I know it's better and LOTS less expensive but I don't like it nearly so much!
ReplyDelete