Decaffeinated Apocalypse

I was going to quit drinking caffeine today. I had it all planned out, too. I brought six of those Crystal Light drinks that were on sale at Kroger’s last night and I had a schedule worked out where I would have one bottle of Crystal Light and then refill it with water. This would last me most of the day, I calculated, and when I got home I would either drink a bottle of caffeine free pop or several glasses of water through dinner, play practice, and the remainder of the evening.

It’s a great plan, but it didn’t work out like I had hoped. You see, the bottle of Crystal Light was only 16oz as opposed to the 20oz bottles of Diet Mountain Dew to which I have become accustomed. I drank the first three at 8am, another one at 10 while I was at a meeting, and the last two I downed in conjunction with my lunch at noon. For the past two hours, I have sat at my desk, staring at the clock, thinking about how great it would be to have a cold bottle of Diet Mountain Dew to sip on. That’s when the headache started. It was small at first, just a tickle above my left eye, but it spread quickly across the left hemisphere of my now bald head where it currently sits, throbbing with each successive heartbeat.

So I went across the street to the Vietnamese Deli and purchased not one but two 20oz bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. The headache has lessened and if I’m lucky it will be gone by this evening, allowing me to focus on remembering my lines for the play (lest Abbie should decapitate me and feast on the remains).

All this caffeinated fun got me thinking. What would happen if there was a national emergency and suddenly we were without the niceties we currently enjoy? What if, for instance, all the power went out, or all the major us cities were destroyed in nuclear explosions? What if the Stay Puft Marshmallow man came for us all?

Those that weren’t killed in the original marshmallowy onslaught, would undoubtedly be confused for a week or so afterwards. Many would put aside their differences and band together as a community in a way similar to what we saw in the aftermath of 9/11 … for a time. Soon there would be food shortages. Soon there would be contaminated water. Soon the prescription medications would run out. Eventually, we’d all run out of our particular version of Diet Mountain Dew. And then were would we be?

I’m talking about disaster of biblical proportions. Old Testament, real, wrath of God type of stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together.

Mass Hysteria.

All because we’re too damn dependent upon Diet Mountain Dew. The sad thing is that I know all of this and yet I keep drinking the stuff. Because when you get right down to it, Diet Mountain Dew is one tasty beverage!

And my city would likely be incinerated anyway.