eople who drink Diet Coke often call it “DC”
Yeah, it’s kind of annoying.
Today, as of 11:22am, I have had 1 Diet Coke. But I’m thinking about getting another.
Okay, I just got another.
When I was in high school, I drank about 6-10 Diet Cokes a day.
These days I cap out at around three.
Diet Coke drinkers, in no particular order: Me, my friend Lisa, Jeff Tweedy, my friend Aaron, my editor Andrew at the Morning News, other people I forget. Damn. I used to be able to rattle this shit off. I’m off my game. I probably need more Diet Coke.
People in AA drink a lot of Diet Coke. Lifetime dieters drink a lot of Diet Coke. Doctors and lawyers and editors and people with other stressful jobs drink a lot of Diet Coke. Diet Coke drinkers tend to be compulsive drinkers, which is why they have to drink diet sodas – otherwise, their blood would be flooded with sugar.
The first time I drank Diet Coke I was 10. It was summer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and my older cousin worked at an arcade called Star World. In addition to the glories of 10-cent hotdog night, Star World offered employees free soda. I spent all summer amidst the the blinking lights and boinking machines of that place, sipping free Diet Cokes, which I drank instead of Coke because I wanted to lose weight, since I was in love with this tool named Andy, who ended up barfing all over himself in a bathroom one night at a party. After that, I was addicted to the stuff.
A funny thing: I can’t stand the taste of regular cola any more. Haven't tried it in years.
I’ve never once worried about the chemicals or cancer or any of that stuff. If Diet Coke takes me down, well, what can you do? Somebody better.
In college, a friend told me that tests had proven Diet Coke works as a spermicide. Whenever I opened a can in front of him, he’d scrunch up his face and say, “Blech! How can you drink that spermicide?” This never worried me.
Once, I read a study linking excessive Diet Coke drinking to depression, which did worry me. But it made sense to me that weight-obsessed compulsive drinkers would be depressed by nature – so can you really claim a causality?
Diet Coke in the plastic bottle tastes different than Diet Coke in the can. The former has too much carbonation and never gets cold enough. Fountain Diet Cokes are totally different – because you can really taste the sweetness of the syrup. My personal favorite Diet Coke – and this is controversial – is the Diet Coke from McDonald’s. It’s light on carbonation, a little sweeter than regular DC, but without leaving a sugar aftertaste. That’s what I really can’t stand – the sugar aftertaste. It’s funny, because if you ask other people what they hate about diet drinks, they usually say, “The aftertaste.”
If I drink too many Diet Cokes without eating, I get nauseous. This is related to the caffeine – same thing happens with coffee – which might make you suspect that I’d just drink Caffeine Free Diet Coke, but I don’t. It tastes weird.
It’s tricky, I know.