Comment: Coke Zero is my crack.

I really need to have it every day.

And I’m not one of those women who’s been swilling Diet Coke since high school.

To me, drinking Diet Coke is akin to sucking on some week-old corn syrup plus saccharine left in an old shoe.

I had a roommate in college who every night ate a salad slathered in dressing (which is the fattiest thing in a salad, with the possible exception of artichoke hearts) and a Diet Coke.

The Diet Coke and Brownie diet was also popular. Go figure.

Anyway, I never understood it. If you’re going to diet, do it. If you’re not, I thought, drink Coke. Sweet, sugary Coke. But I am no longer an eighteen year old with the metabolism of, say, an eighteen year old. I can no longer afford the calories my sugary beverage of choice saddled me with so effectively.

So I stopped drinking soda.

Until about three months ago. Or maybe it was more. It’s all a hyper-caffeinated blur to me. Since me and my baby CZ hooked up, we have been inseparable.

But don’t try to pass off Diet Coke as Coke Zero. There’s a difference. I LOATHE Diet Coke. Despise it. Non merci, mon ami.

Coke Zero is particularly bubbly and fizzy, painfully so. It’s like a thousand little flavored needles attacking your tongue. (Not that I’m into that kind of thing.)

So cool, so biting, so full of caffeine and fake sugar. It is best drunk ice cold, but not with ice. The distinction is important. Once it gets warm it begins to taste a little bit more like Diet Coke, so watch out.

I ‘m pretty sure there’s stuff in Coke Zero that’s addictive. The caffeine, of course, but something else too. Probably the phenylalanine. MMM, phenyl-ly.

Did you know that in Peru people drink Coca tea, which is made from coca leaves, which are also what make up cocaine? So perhaps we are not so far from the crack analogy after all.

Thirsty.