Hi. My name is Natalie. And I'm an addict.

I once tried to stop drinking coke. It lasted about 6 months. Those were the hardest six months of my life. I stopped drinking it because I had an ulcer and the doctor told me that lying off the coke might help my little stomach heal. It healed, and I went back to drinking coke. And lived happily ever after. Every once and a while I feel like I should stop drinking it. The urge to be all healthy and s*&^ take over any realistic expectation that I might have for myself. I will tell myself that I will only drink a coke if I go out to eat. That seems to only add to the problem because I eat out all the time. I then take a more dramatic approach and say I can only have 2 cokes a week. That usually lasts about 2 days because by the 3rd day of the week, I have already reached my quota and need some of the good stuff.

I finally just started buying the 24 packs at Albertsons and keeping the whole pack in my fridge. Ah, a nice cold coke whenever I need/feel/want one. Seriously, it’s the only way to live. Mackenzi does the same thing. However, she is a diet coke drinker and I, a regular. But whatever, our fridge is big enough to hold 48 cans of pure carbonated, caffeine bliss.

Just last week, both our supplies were running low. We were mistaken to think that we didn’t need to restock our supply and thought that not having it our home would help us with our addictions. We didn’t think this decision through enough because we ended up at the McDonalds down the street more than I can count.

Saturday rolled around and we both knew that we needed coke in our home come Sunday morning. Nothing sounds better than chips, salsa and a big fat coke on a Sunday morning. Kenzi would concur.

We didn’t get home from our nights activity until 12:45 and knew that the only shop open was the Smith’s down the street. And, it was only open until 1. We bolted for the car and made it to Smith’s with minutes remaining. Right as we were about to approach the automatic front doors, a scary homeless man stepped out from behind the huge pillar inches away from us. He just stared at us..didn’t say a word. And to our horror, the doors did not open. There we were, 2 single gals trapped within reach of an unknown scary man. We stood there frozen. Maybe if we didn’t look at him, he would go away.

That lasted about 2 seconds when I turned to him and said, “are they closed?” He said, “No, just try the other door.” And Mackenzi and I ran like we were in a marathon. Ok, not really, we turned abruptly and went through the other doors. However, she grabbed my arm and pinched so hard I am sure I have a nice pretty mark now. We didn’t leave each others sides the entire time we were in the store.

We got our cokes, a few things for our Sunday dinners and were safely back in the car in 5 minutes. The things we’d do for a coke ceases to amaze me. Come Sunday morning, that coke couldn’t have tasted any better.