How to make a Diet Poke

One of my friends at work once used the following analogy to describe diet soda:

    Diet soda is to real food as the shadows on the wall of the cave are to reality.

If you didn't understand the reference, you need only get two things from it: 1) my addiction to diet soda is so bad that it somehow justifies references to ancient greek philosophers and 2) diet soda cannot be compared in any way, shape or form to real food. If you know the reference, and you think I am badly misusing and misquoting Plato, go drink some hemlock and shut up.

Anyway, back to diet soda. I know it is bad for me, I read an article last week that correlated excess consumption of diet soda to strokes. Aparently, people who drink diet drinks are actually fatter than those who drink regular sodas. I get that, I tend to make up the excess calories I save with my diet coke many times over. And most importantly reading the can is like going to a chemistry class:

Carbonated Water,
Caramel Color, (So, how does one grow caramel color, is there a plant?)
Aspartame,  (Anything we lovingly call FAKE SUGAR has to be bad)
Phosphoric Acid, (I think this is the ingredient that makes diet soda eat away the enamel in your teeth. MMM)
 Potassium Benzoate (to protect taste),
Natural Flavors, (I bet they use a different meaning of natural than the rest of us)
Citric Acid,  (This must be like vitamin C, right?)
Caffeine    (I have nothing bad to say about caffeine, I live in Seattle, it is heretical to hate caffeine in Seattle)

But like a girl who always goes after the bad boys, I keep going back to my diet soda. Eventually they will  ban it in the work place as a health hazard, those of us who drink the mess of chemicals will have to put on our coats and take coke breaks outside (and NOT that kind of coke break). There will be law suits, and I will sue the fake sugar companies for causing me to lose my teeth and gain weight. But until then, I will continue to enjoy my low-calorie beverage of choice.

And this is where I really annoy the mainstay providers of diet cola drinks. I do not like either of their products. The one that starts with a C is too carbonated and too harsh for my discerning fake sugar taste buds. The one that ends in Epsi is very smooth, but is too smooth. It is like the skeezy guy at a bar with one too many lines.

 So, I do the unthinkable: I mix them together in a drink I like to call Diet Poke (yes, that is what she said). It provides me an even larger dose of diet goodness and combines the very worst of both beverages into a wonderful bubbly mess that I consume every day at around two.  I have gotten to the point that I am unable to drink either major soda brand without a dose of the other brand.

Occassionally I will have a Diet Cherry Poke or a Lime Poke to mix things up a bit. I vary which brand I get the flavor from.  When I was a kid, we made these types of creations at the soda fountain and our parents shrieked in horror. But try it, I am sure you will enjoy the taste and health benefits as much as me. ;)