I SHOULD JUST COME CLEAN …..

The time has come, I feel, for me to bear my soul and clear my conscious. So, I’ll confess to you now: I’m having a love affair. And sadly, Blaine is the one who found all the evidence and made me face the cold hard fact that my passion is out of control …. My obsession apparently knows no bounds.

The one in question? Well, he’s one of the medical profession; a doctor, in fact. His full name? Diet Dr. Pepper.

Now, I’ve long been a connoisseur of The Diet Beverage, and had long, healthy relationships with both Diet Coke and Diet Sprite in my younger, more carefree days. Then I discovered The Diet Dr. Pepper. Truly, the one that tastes most like its calorie-laden original. But until recently, I was still in control. Or so I thought.

I don’t drink diet beverages while pregnant. Silly, perhaps, but the thought of ingesting all that nutri-sweet and passing it on to an innocent lima bean bothers me. But something happened during this last pregnancy that is so sinfully, wickedly wonderful, it should have been outlawed: Sonic started carrying Diet Dr. Pepper.

HAVE-YOU-EVER-HEARD-OF-SUCH-YUMMY-WONDERFULNESS???????

My obsession with the Styrofoam (ie, sweat-free) cup from Sonic, and their fabulous rabbit-pellet ice, combined with Diet Dr. Pepper? Did any of you know that such syrupy goodness existed, or was even possible?????

I greedily eyed the signs at my local Sonic throughout the pregnancy, calculating the exact day and moment I would be delivered of the baby and able to indulge my decadent fantasy of diving headfirst into a Rt. 44, goggles and fins attached.

And when the day came, I found myself -- shamefully -- completely unable to turn back. And now, I am so in love with DDP that I would divorce Blaine and marry it if it were a person. Unfortunately, in the majority of US states, it’s still illegal for someone to walk down the aisle with a soft drink beverage.

Much like a bulimic hides candy wrappers, I thought my secret was safe. Until Blaine, damn his very neat-freak soul, came home and started cleaning house again.

He came into the living room last night holding nine Sonic cups. Nine. NINE, I tell you! Nine empty vessels, proof of my love affair with the doc. He asked, “Kristie, just how many times have you been to Sonic this week? I found three cups in your car, two in your computer room, one in your bathroom, two in the kitchen, and one in the closet, of all places ….. what’s up with this?”

What could I say? How could I deny it? It was like an intervention, only without the rehab … and I don’t want to change!

Now, before any of you local readers try to comment about how Chick-Fil-A has carried Diet Dr. Pepper for quite some time, let me remind you that fast food restaurant is easily four or file miles from my house. Sonic, on the other hand, is most conveniently located across the street from Target, Kroger, and my local bank. How can I *not* drive-thru in a regular (twice-daily … yikes!) basis?

And before you make any snide comments about me spending the equivalent of the national debt (at $1.70 a pop ---- Ha! Get it? POP!) I will, in my defense, tell you that I often pour DDP from home into the cups and re-use them …. But RABBIT PELLET ICE, PEOPLE, SONIC HAS RABBIT PELLET ICE!!!

I don’t drink coffee, but found myself driving through Sonic at 8:45 the other morning for my DDP fix. I don’t know whether to be proud of my devotion, or embarrassed.

And since confession is good for the soul, here are two more things I am in love with recently:



My jumbo-sized griddle from Wal-Mart, upon which I can cook nine large or twelve (TWELVE!) medium chocolate chip pancakes at a time! This way, my Saturday morning cook-a-thon, during which I make enough pancakes -- usually about a zillion -- to last my children the week (or at least three or four days) no longer takes half the morning. Bearing in mind that there is no way to speed up the process, for if you turn up the heat on the griddle, in an attempt to cook the pancakes more quickly, said children will turn up their noses at the “burned” pancakes and all the cooking will be for nothing. Unless you feel like eating a zillion brown pancakes yourself. Which I have been known to do …. the ungrateful little brats. But with my new Walton-family-sized griddle, problem solved!!



And, the person who came up with the Oscar-Mayer Ready-To-Serve Bacon!!! (Please, no hateful vegetarian guestbook entries … my arteries are too clogged to deal with replying to you. And yes, I really need to get a life because I took a picture of BACON this morning!) My kids love, love, love bacon. And these slices are already cooked and ready to go; you just pop them in the microwave for ten or fifteen seconds, and viola! Pork heaven, without the grease splatter and disgusting mess to clean up afterward. Truly, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Aaaaahhhhhh. I’m going to go pop open a Diet Dr Pepper and think about how fabulous my life is and how it's good I was never a prairie woman.

PS. If you're reading this update and there's no music playing, it's because my web space server is an incompetent boob of a provider. Apparently, after using them for almost three years, they no longer (as of today) recognize my user name or password. My web space, where I store music and video, seems to have disappeared. And I am not allowed to access it, because I don't know the password. When I called tech support, they referred me to the online faq, which oh-so-helpfully suggested I type my password correctly. CORRECTLY. Yeah. Because after three years, I suddenly forgot how to spell it. So the tech support girl reset my password to "password". Which the site still didn't recognize. So now I'm waiting for a return call, to determine if there is a glitch in *their* system, or if the problem is all mine. Which I am sure it will be all mine, according to them. If, however, you are reading this and there is music playing, forget every hateful thing I just typed, and I heart Cox forever..