Die With a T! This essay was written in 1998.
The dollar goes in, a button is pressed, and moments later an aluminum cylinder is deposited in a plastic chute with a "thump-thump!" noise. Transaction complete, I wander off with the cold, sweating can in my greedy clutches. While plain, old water is probably more beneficial to the human body, many people choose, as I just did, to drink carbonated soft drinks. Once that choice is made, what remains is the decision between diet and regular cola.
A trio of diet colas!
Once upon a time that can would have been filled with regular, sugar-filled cola for me, but not anymore. Far too many people choose regular soft drinks which soak their teeth in syrupy sugar, jack their bodies with a large dose of sucrose when it least expects it, and produce sticky, bug-infested, piles of empty cans. While diet cola, which has no sugar and no calories, is not actually good, it is very much the lesser of two evils and as such is my choice in beverages.



There are those who claim that the chemicals used to "sweeten" a diet soft drink are hazardous to your health. To them, the statement that a natural substance, such as sugar, is superior to any kind of synthetic chemicals is a no-brainer. Perhaps in the case of Saccharine, a sweetener now found only in TAB, they might be right. But aspartame, aside from those few who are allergic to certain chemicals it contains, is a wholly benign compound which has withstood two and a half decades of extensive studies--many of which were commissioned by those who oppose its use! And unlike sugar, which is hardly natural in the crystallized white form we use every day, aspartame doesn’t affect your blood sugars or rot your teeth. Another source of popular dislike for diet cola is a supposed "after-taste" experienced after partaking. On the contrary, I find the effect to be the opposite! The sugary, syrupy, gummy aftertaste I get from regular pop creates a compulsion to go rinse my mouth out in a hurry, or to brush my teeth poste haste!
Bullet calmly watches over the toothpaste.
Diet cola, on the other hand, leaves no aftertaste in my mouth and can be drunken while driving without fear of "yuck-mouth" developing by the time you arrive at your destination. Another reason that some dislike diet cola is that it isn't sweet enough. But any diet cola drinker quickly learns to look at the bottom of a can before opening it; if the expiration date is more than a month in the past you may be drinking a bitter can of seltzer water! Most diet colas consumed before their expiration date will be refreshing and slightly sweet, with virtually no calories at all.

But my reasons for drinking diet cola aren't really dietary. While I could stand to lose a few pounds, I am not obsessed by my weight and spend little time thinking about calories. I have other, more pressing reasons. One such reason is that I like my nice, white teeth. As a teenager, I drank regular pop almost exclusively and soon developed bad teeth, even though I brushed them in the morning and in the evening. Perhaps this twice-daily regimen didn’t constitute adequate brushing, but surely it should have prevented at least some of the myriad cavities that I was plagued with throughout my adolescence. I switched to diet cola when I was 19, and I am proud to say I haven't had even one additional cavity since. Perhaps there are other reasons for this cessation in tooth rotting activity, but I can't think of any other change in my eating or oral hygiene habits that might have had this welcome result.

The experimental shirt with cola. Another good reason to drink diet cola, to my mind, is what I call “the stain issue.” Take this test yourself: pour some regular, sugary Pepsi or Coca Cola on a white shirt. Blot it dry with a towel, and then wear it for a few hours. This is a good simulation of what happens if cola is accidentally spilled on one’s shirt during lunch. Dr. Science!Now try to wash that stuff out—and good luck! Perform that same ritual with diet Pepsi or diet Coke. I am no chemist and haven’t an adequate explanation of why; but somehow that diet cola always comes right out in the wash, while the regular stuff saddles you with a stain forever. Dr. Science might say that the sweet sugar molecules are the molecular equivalent of homesteaders, driving the natives from the fibers and putting up little strip-malls. But he’s not a real doctor, and neither am I. An explanation is not forthcoming from this quarter, but that stain certainly is.

You may infer from that last point that I may not be the most careful or graceful of human specimens. And, indeed, it would be only a slight exaggeration to say that I could’ve been voted “most likely to require toe amputation” in my high school yearbook. A few spills here and there are just part of my package. Therefore, another important reason for me to drink the diet stuff is floor stickies; that’s right, floor stickies.Stickies in the making! Spill a half-can of regular soda on the floor and then mop it up. Wait about, oh, half an hour. Now, walk across the spot where the pop was spilled. There’s a reason for that sickening, ripping, tearing noise and the accompanying tendency for your feet to stubbornly resist further movement. All the sugar that couldn’t be wiped up has now congealed into a layer of gum and has turned the floor into an oversized, linoleum sheet of flypaper. Diet cola, on the other hand, is about as sticky as water—that is, not at all. A quick wipe with a dry paper towel is all that is required, and even a rinse is optional; that floor will be blissfully free of the infernal glue that is sugar, unless someone else pours some regular soda there afterwards.

And if that regular pop hadn’t been meticulously cleaned up after the last experiment, some unwelcome visitors might have soon come along to help out with the clean-up. Yep, I’m talking about bugs. Yet another compelling reason not to drink regular soda. There is nothing on this earth that an ant likes better than sugar, and regular cola slicks have it in spades. As proof, here’s another experiment! Grab two cans of soda, one regular and the other diet, and step outside. Take a gander around, and try to find an anthill. Diabolical. Evil. Socialists. Ants.Watch the ants for a while, that’s what I always do. Aren’t they fascinating? Happy, little, socialist masses, working hard for the proletariat, they toil and toil endlessly. They deserve this little treat; first, pour some regular cola on the ground about one foot away from the anthill. Second, pour some of the diet cola on the ground; only this time, pour it only six inches from the anthill. Wait a few moments, and it will soon be clear what the ants’ preference is. While some ants investigate the diet slick, and occasionally make trips there to retrieve what they think is water, they will literally swarm on and around the regular cola with abandon; they see that regular cola as a very convenient and abundant source of food. Congratulations on furthering the exploits of the colony! But if that regular drink should get spilled in the kitchen, it may soon come to pass that these ants, or some ants very much like them, will be traveling out of their way to take that wasted sugar off the hands of the bourgeoisie homeowner.

Ants aren’t the only bug that like the regular stuff, either. Ever wonder why the bottle flies like to hang out by the company can-catcher? Ever been bothered by persistent buzzing noises when trying to return used cans at the store?Flies! O my! Fruit flies, gnats, bottle flies, and any number of other flying insects love it when people forget to wash out their regular soda cans. Baby flies. Aren't thay cute?Tinier creatures, like bacteria and mold, also find cans and bottles an agreeable lattice upon which to festoon their progeny. If a person wants to avoid having little creatures breed in their empties, they must wash each can out thoroughly in the sink before storing it. This is a waste of time, and also a waste of water. With a diet drink, one need only shake it out a bit, so as to avoid dribblies, and place it in the can catcher. As the remaining diet cola dries, it leaves nothing but food coloring and a bit of residue. No bug, microbe or fungus would ever be attracted to it, and that suits me just fine.

I won’t deny it; all of regular cola’s detriments, with the exceptions of the hundred calories per can and the affects drinking it has on a body’s blood sugar, can be avoided through effort and forethought. Dirty cans can be cleaned, spills can be carefully avoided and, if a person is packing a travel kit, teeth can be brushed after each can is consumed. But cleaning cans is a dirty job, and besides which, it’s a waste of time and water. Aaaahhh.....so refreshing.And sometimes spills can’t be helped, especially when people like Joe Whited are taken into account. Finally, brushing multiple times thoughout the day is a pursuit fit only for the obsessive compulsives among us. So, while there are those who think that diet cola has an unwelcome aftertaste, isn’t sweet enough, and may not be natural enough, I say drink the diet! The benefits, convenience and, in my opinion, the lack of any discernable sticky aftertaste make diet the choice for the clumsy, lazy and dentally conscious among us!  ¶ 4:20 PM