Another day, another Double Gulp ... or two

If this were a typical Monday, and not a fake-holiday Monday, I'd be drinking a Double Gulp about now. Because I am fully addicted to what my mother used to call "the jolt." (I'll try not to let the fact that she died pretty much from kidney failure diminish my enjoyment of said jolt.) After years of drinking soda only occasionally, this summer I fell off the wagon so completely that I don't even remember what it was like to be on it. Of course, in keeping with the late theme, I embraced fizzy pop as "energy drinks" elbowed past them the zeitgeist. As good as people like Lindsay Lohan and our obstetrician look with Red Bull in their hands, it's just not for me.

I don't even remember for sure how I fell off the wagon, other than it was probably some combination of the crisp, yummy cold bubbles and summer heat, plus my desire for a deal (refilling the biggest cup possible). And yes, a Double Gulp is indeed the biggest cup possible. At least it's the biggest cup intended for one person. At one 7-Eleven, I saw some sort of "team jug" kind of thing, but I knew if I tried to bring that back into the van I'd not be greeted warmly. Cheryl suffers my addiction with as much patience as I have a right to expect. I've spilled a couple of my megapops, which don't fit neatly into any cup holder, but since they're more than a foot tall, they manage to wedge handily between the floor and the bottom of the cup holder in my CR-V.

The sad thing is that there is not really any hyperbole in this post. I really drink at least one Double Gulp a day most days, and sometimes two. And for those who don't know, a Double Gulp is 64 ounces -- twice as big as a piddly Big Gulp, and only a little less than an entire 6-pack. I imagine that this is probably not extremely healthy for me. The good news is that it's diet pop, but what I save in calories, I probably make up for in brain damage/tumor fuel from the artificial sweetener. One of my colleagues told me Nutrasweet is good for the skin. I hope she's right, but it doesn't matter. Like I said, I'm hooked.

For me, it's not just the caffeine the pop provides. I really do just enjoy drinking it. If I weren't drinking massive quantities of Diet Coke (and yes, I prefer Diet Coke, but that's another subject for another post), I'd be drinking massive quantities of iced tea or something else. And on some cold days of late, I've switched to hot tea, in my petite little 32-ounce mug. A few of those a day is almost as satisfying as a DG. Almost. Now I gotta get me one. My fallback is cracking open a two-liter bottle of pop, and I try to keep some of those on hand, like methadone or something.