bait and switch

i just experienced the lunch equivalent of stubbing my toe: a diet coke masquerading as a regular coke.

maybe it's just my natural tendency to exaggerate, but i think getting a diet coke when you want a regular coke is among the worst things that can ever happen to you. regular coke has a tangy, zingy, sharp flavor that your tongue anxiously awaits, so when the overly sweet, plastic-y, calorieless diet coke hits it, your tongue kind of freaks out and you throw up a little bit. at least i do.

but diet coke's not done ruining your lunch there. no, it's got the gift of aftertaste, the enviable ability to linger in your mouth minutes upon minutes after you threw the whole damn drink away. the artificial sweetener leaves a residue of anti-taste on your tongue that wreaks havoc with the sandwich you're trying desperately to enjoy, turning regular onions into sweet onions and doing much, much worse things to lunch meat.

there's a reason the word "saccharine" is used as a negative adjective when referring to smooth jazz music. arrgh. i breifly entertained the notion of eating a whole container of sweet and sour sauce to kill the diet coke taste in my mouth, but since i'd already kind of thrown up, i decided against it.

so i chugged a bag of sawdust instead.

seriously. fuck diet coke.