Pop-free: Four years and counting
Though I missed the exact date—August 2—the fact remains the same: I am still pop-free.
That’s right—the Mountain Dew I drank at Oasis four years ago before taking Zee German to the airport remains the last pop I drank.
Despite the fact I no longer have any desire to drink pop (or soda, or whatever you call it wherever you are), there were some close calls this year. At my uncle’s retirement party on New Year’s Eve, I took a sip of my sister’s Shirley Temple because I doubt I had ever had one. When the flavor hit my taste buds, I realized it was made with some kind of soda. I kept the liquid in my mouth and spit it out in the bathroom. While visiting my boss in May, I drank a couple glassfuls of mineral water. At first I wondered if I had broken my streak, if mineral water is considered soda. It’s not so I’m in the clear.
Phew! The streak lives!
Why do I keep acknowledging my pop-free streak? To gloat, I suppose. Drinking pop seems to be second nature for so many people. It is unhealthy shit and Americans are drowning themselves with it. It is one reason, I assume, why Americans are so unhealthy—which no doubt has a major effect on the cost of health care, which I have been meaning to write about forever.
