Here in Katie’s Head

Dear Coca-Cola factory people,

I’ve been a Diet Coke addict for about six years now. I’ve started and stopped. I’ve stopped and stayed stopped for a while. But the truth is, I like my Diet Coke.

I like the fizzy, refreshing taste. I like the way the can feels in my hand. I like the way cans are the perfect size for the side pocket on my backpack. I like the way people in the newsroom bribe me with Diet Coke. I like that I have one of the rare can-dispensing vending machines at work (bottles just aren’t the same).

What I do not like is when you people change things on me.

This week, when I got to work on Thursday, I bought a can to drink with my lunch. It was a can like all other Diet Coke cans.

But an hour and a half later, I got thirsty again. I wanted more. So I went back to my vending machine and I bought another. As I walked back to the newsroom, I opened the can without even looking down at it.

Something was wrong. Something was different. That pull tab did not feel like the pull tab of a Diet Coke can.

I looked down, noticing the slightly more rounded tab, the wider hole, the completely different shape of the can’s top. It was Diet Coke can, but it was weird.

Everyone else in the newsroom thought I was weird for even noticing.

I was initially suspicious, but the contents still tasted like Diet Coke and it didn’t kill me. But I’m hoping the whole switch was merely an accident, that only this particular batch of cans was different from the rest. Because this will continue to bother me until the cans go back to normal.

Please quit putting the wrong tops on my Diet Coke cans. I realize the new pull tabs are easier to lift, but they are just not right? I know you think just not right is no justification, but it’s the same rationale America uses to dismiss things like socialized health care and marmite, so obviously it should work for this, too, right?

Yours addictedly,

Katie

Posted: 3:04 pm · Category: Consumerism, Letters · Comments: 11

So WordPress kills spam better than MovableType could ever hope to, but I still get a few that end up in the moderation queue for me to gleefully delete.

And they tend to fall into two main categories: viagra and poker.

Now I see I’ve received an odd new one: e-dental-plans.com

e-dental-plans? Does this mean you go to an e-dentist? Or you just get e-insurance? It seems that e-dentistry didn’t work out for them, because the domain doesn’t resolve anymore.

But really, e-dental-plans? WTF?

Posted: 2:52 pm · Category: Rants, Wordpress · Comments: 1

My first year in college, Mom suggested to me that, if I didn’t want to get a job, I should look into working as a research subject in experiments. She told me about how a friend of hers made thousands of dollars whoring herself out to the NIH.

I finally took her up on the suggestion.

Tonight I am sleeping in the basement of the Energy Balance Lab. For the past three days, I’ve been eating exclusively the specially prepared meals that they give me. Bright and early tomorrow morning, a graduate research assistant will wake me up and drag me into the calorimeter chamber where I will stay for 23 hours.

After another week, I’ll do the whole thing again — this time eating a diet specially adapted for calcium content. And when it’s all over, hopefully they’ll figure out if a high calcium diet can speed up metabolism and thus be good for weight loss, and if the source of the calcium makes a difference. And I’ll get $650.

The food’s pretty good, too.

Posted: 9:36 pm · Category: Silly Things, Work · Comments: 7

My crowning achievement in life: convincing my boyfriend to write a song about monkeys for me.

Posted: 10:29 pm · Category: Quinton, Silly Things · Comments: 1

When I was little, I asked Mom, “When we run out of dog food, can we get a cat?” (I remember this vividly.) My logic was that the dog would die without food, and we’d need a replacement. I didn’t realize we had the capacity for more than one pet at a time, but apparently we do, because in kindergarten, we adopted the runt of the neighborhood stray’s litter. After much deliberation, Dad declared the cat’s name to be Homer.

Homer didn’t like us at first. He spent the first two days hiding under the washing machine. When he came out, I pulled his tail. I knew nothing of cats and wanted to know what happens when you pull a cats tail. He bit my thumb. I got a band-aid and tried it again to see if the first time was a fluke. It wasn’t.

Homer didn’t stay a runt for long. He became the biggest, strongest, and most muscular cat I’ve ever known. He was the alpha male of the neighborhood. Indoor cats down the street would have panic attacks when he walked past their houses. He brought us squirrels (or usually just their tails) as trophies. He usually gave them to the dog, who proudly carried them around the backyard.

In his old age, Homer gave up his muscles and stayed inside napping more. He was always incredibly patient and would always let you pet him. Usually, after at good petting he’d want to play for a bit. Every time I came back to Lawrence after visiting my parents’ house, I’d be sporting scratches all over my hands and arms. He wouldn’t bite or scratch hard. He knew to play nice. Nice-ish.

Homer was always a bit distant, but the fact that he was available without being needy made him the perfect cat for us.

Homer died today while curled up on his favorite chair. He was 15. I miss him a lot.

Posted: 10:03 pm · Category: Family, Memories · Comments: 6

After a week in Fort Scott with Q, I returned to an electricity-less home in Wichita.

Today is Day Five and we still don’t have power. It may be several more days. We are not in a “priority zone” despite being in the middle of town.

Please send hate mail to Westar on my behalf. It’s really cold and I miss heat.

Posted: 11:32 am · Category: Status, Weather, Wichita · Comments: 2